Raphaela Holy Nation – 2

“Has arrived.”

With Selene’s inorganic and emotionless voice, I stepped onto the ground again. The dizziness quickly subsided. My head just spun a little, but there were no other symptoms.

“…….”

But the Knight Captains were different.

Iris, Claudia, Rije, and Erica. Without exception, they were all sprawled haphazardly on the floor, desperately trying not to vomit what was inside them.

The first time they teleported, they were dizzy enough to stagger and speak, but from the second time, just standing up seemed too much for them, and from the third time, they completely shut their mouths.

They had long since thrown off their armor. They said that wearing it made their heads ring, prolonging the dizziness several times over. The discarded armor was carefully placed beside them.

With the Knight Captains in such a state, the rest periods between teleports inevitably grew longer. Now I understood why Selene had come to pick us up under the pretext of an escort.

How could they possibly fight an enemy in that condition? They couldn’t even stand up, and were putting all their effort into not vomiting what was inside them.

If we had just headed to the Holy Nation by carriage as originally planned, an escort wouldn’t have been strictly necessary, but it would have probably taken months to reach the Holy Nation’s Grand Cathedral.

Thanks to Selene teleporting us, we arrived in just one day, even considering the rest periods in between.

“Are you okay, Rije?”

“…….”

Rije, with her trembling body, raised her head and looked at me. Her blue eyes seemed to say, “Does this look okay to you?” Indeed, it was a pointless question, as she clearly didn’t look okay at first glance.

Given her posture, her chest was pressed between her upper body and the floor, spreading softly to the sides. Her spread side-boob protruded quite a bit from under her armpit. Even in that state, it maintained its elasticity perfectly.

She herself seemed unaware of her appearance, probably because her vision was spinning. If she had known, she would have certainly teased me and tried to seduce me.

“My work is finished.”

Selene neatly ignored the Knight Captains clutching their heads in agony and infused power into the Divine Catalyst in her hand. The gray and silver light scattered around them gradually began to fade.

“I will look forward to the day we can meet again.”

The Divine Catalyst in her hand glowed. Selene’s figure vanished and the traces of the moon disappeared. Warm sunlight filled the empty space. White light mixed with yellow spread everywhere.

The Knight Captains still hadn’t come to their senses. Since it seemed they would need quite a lot of time to recover, I decided to wait patiently beside them and looked around.

‘Incredible.’

Everywhere was white. All the buildings on the street and their roofs, everywhere the eye could see, even the tiles laid on the main street, were all shining white.

Although the tiles on the main street were clearly white, they were so pure that there wasn’t a single speck of dust. Countless people were walking reverently, but there were no footprints, not even dirt.

According to the NPC’s explanation, the entire Papal State was protected by divine power. In the game, I had just glossed over it, but seeing it in front of my eyes, it was nothing short of a miracle.

In a world that directly showed the existence of God like this, the thought that it was natural for people to fall into religion briefly crossed my mind.

However, what truly caught my eye was something else.

‘……Why are the women’s clothes so wholesome? Did the mod creator skip it because they were too lazy?’

It was the attire of the women in the Holy Nation, which was 180 degrees different from that in the Empire.

Unlike the clothes of the women in the Empire, where crop tops and mini-skirts barely counted as exposure, most of the women in the Holy Nation wore modern but even more conservative clothes that covered their bodies tightly.

Fashions where the only exposed skin was the face above the neck were not uncommon, and even if there was exposure, it was at most a slight reveal of one thigh or wearing a black sleeveless top.

Women who covered their chests with a single strap and wore hot pants that were practically underwear, as in the Empire, could not be found no matter how hard I looked.

At the wholesome sight I hadn’t seen in a long time, my mind felt at ease.

‘The Inquisitor might have been a special case.’

Stella wore a nun’s habit that was undeniably revealing, both objectively and subjectively, and the battle nuns under her command were so exposed that a single gust of wind would reveal everything underneath.

But since the women on the streets of the Holy Nation were completely covered, the thought naturally occurred to me that perhaps *they* were the strange ones.

“Ughhh…”

While I was contentedly gazing at the modest and demure appearance of the Holy Nation’s women, calming my mind and body, the Knight Captains seemed to come to their senses and began to stagger to their feet.

“How’s your head? Has it gotten better?”

“……I can stand up, at least. I still can’t walk properly, though.”

I helped Iris, who was the first to stand up, and leaned her against a nearby tree. Iris leaned her back against the tree, clutching her forehead, and gasped for breath.

I helped Erica and Claudia one by one, and finally extended my hand to Rije. Rije obediently entrusted her body to my hand.

After putting her left arm over my shoulder, I put my hand under her right armpit and helped her up. My hand awkwardly waved in the air. If it went any further, my hand would have touched Rije’s underboob due to its position.

No, even with just this, her side-boob was rubbing against my right forearm. I repeatedly told myself that it was unavoidable due to human anatomy when helping someone up, and moved my steps.

“……I don’t want to do this twice. When we go back, let’s take a carriage, even if it takes a long time.”

Rije slightly twisted her body and buried her face deep in my chest, muttering that. The other Knight Captains also nodded as if agreeing with her.

It seemed they had truly struggled quite a lot.

“Are you feeling better?”

A cheerful voice was heard from behind us. It was a voice I had heard before. As I turned my head, I saw Stella and the battle nuns under her command approaching us.

I was momentarily tense, wondering if they were going to talk about heresy again or something, but I relaxed when I saw that no one was holding weapons.

“Now that you seem to have the presence of mind to drink something, drink this first.”

At Stella’s gesture, the battle nuns approached and opened potion-like bottles they held in their hands. Then, they approached each Knight Captain one by one and put the mouth of the bottle to their lips.

The Knight Captains obediently drank the potions fed to them by the battle nuns. They seemed to lack even the strength to resist such actions one by one.

‘That’s quite expensive.’

For all status ailments except ‘Infatuation’, there was a consumable item assigned to remove it. Infatuation was an exception, as the only way to counter it was to greatly increase divine power and faith.

Of course, there were also ways to remove all status ailments: one by magic, one by divine spell, and one by consumable item.

Among these, the consumable item could only be purchased at its proper price in the Holy Nation. It wasn’t impossible to buy it in the Empire, but the merchants seemed to rip people off terribly, making it almost 10 times more expensive than in the Holy Nation.

The last battle nun approached us. The nun tried to feed the potion to Rije, who was practically in my arms, but after seeing our posture, she paused for a moment, then offered it to me instead.

“You want me to feed it to her?”

Nod. The battle nun, who had forced the potion bottle into my hand, returned to her original spot. I held the potion bottle in my left hand and poked Rije.

Rije, who had been burying her face in my chest and inhaling with a sniffle, poked her head out.

“……Why?”

“She told me to feed this to you.”

I rattled the potion bottle in my left hand. Rije glanced at it out of the corner of her eye, then changed her posture.

She released the arm wrapped around my shoulder, gathered it demurely in front of her lower abdomen, then leaned her back against my right arm, putting her full weight on it. Finally, she tilted her head back slightly, looked at the sky, and opened her mouth.

Between her parted lips, her pearly white teeth, her uvula twitching every time she swallowed saliva, her crimson tongue, and the slightly pooled clear saliva between them, all came clearly into view.

Because strange thoughts kept trying to surface, I quickly put the mouth of the potion bottle to her lips and tilted it.

Rije swallowed the potion with gulping sounds. I should correct myself. It wasn’t that strange thoughts *might* surface, but that strange thoughts *did* surface. Especially when I saw Rije’s expression.

After shaking out every last drop of the potion, I hastily pulled the bottle away before *those* kinds of thoughts could dominate my mind.

“Puh-ha,” Rije exhaled, meeting my gaze with her tongue half-out. A very thin silver thread stretched between the bottle’s mouth and her tongue, then snapped in the air.

“Delta, you just put a long stick in my mouth and fed me the liquid inside, didn’t you?”

“……Seeing you talk nonsense, you must be fine now. Stop talking nonsense and just stand up.”

Rije seemed to obediently stand up, holding my hand, then she clung to my side and subtly rubbed her chest against me. It seemed I didn’t need to worry.

The other Knight Captains also stood up, looking perfectly fine, as if they had never been groveling on the floor.

“It’s quite an expensive potion. It’s well worth the price, isn’t it?”

“As you say. I appreciate your kindness.”

“No need for thanks. We misunderstood you first, didn’t we? We accused innocent people of heresy, and to atone for that sin, this is still far from enough.”

As Stella said that, she glanced at the spot where Selene had last been.

“The fact that you arrived at the Papal State so quickly, and that the moon’s divine power still lingers. It seems the Inquisitor passed through here. Is that right?”

“That’s right. The Inquisitor helped us, so we were able to arrive in one day. It was a bit… very difficult, though.”

“So naive, anyway… Follow me. I’ll guide you to where His Holiness the Pope is.”

‘What was that?’

Just now, Stella’s expression darkened slightly. A feeling closer to melancholy or sadness rather than annoyance had surfaced. It was too brief to be certain, though.

Was it just my imagination?

“This is the Grand Cathedral of the Sun. It’s where His Holiness the Pope of the Sun resides.”

The Grand Cathedral of the Sun was enormous in scale. You had to crane your neck far back to barely see its peak. It was a massive structure even in the game, but in reality, it was much larger.

The entire building was lavishly decorated with yellow and white bricks, and golden ornaments. The spire rising in its center was literally so tall it seemed to pierce the sky.

Its exterior was also incredibly complex. It was so difficult for my eyes to even grasp how its structure was put together.

Stella lightly bowed to the cathedral building, then turned to the side. Around them, countless people were kneeling on the ground and praying.

After going a long way around the Grand Cathedral, Stella, who headed to the back of the building, pointed to a lavishly decorated door that looked different from the main entrance. Warm, sun-like light streamed from the half-open door.

“If you go through here, you’ll be directly connected to where His Holiness the Pope of the Sun is. Since the Pope himself has granted your audience, all minor procedures have been omitted.”

With a flick, her slender finger pointed at me.

“Instead, you go first. The rest of you can enter when I tell you to.”

“I’m technically a new knight, though. Shouldn’t the Knight Captains go in first, in order of rank?”

“Why do you think you’re here?”

I immediately understood with that one sentence. After all, the reason we came here in the first place was because of me.

Stella stepped aside from the door, and the battle nuns surrounded us as if escorting us. Although I had experienced a similar situation before, unlike then, the atmosphere wasn’t hostile, and they weren’t holding weapons.

Feeling the stinging gazes piercing my back, I walked into the light. The light pricked my eyelids, making me close my eyes unconsciously, but as the light seemed to subside a little, I carefully opened them.

“You have finally come to me.”

The first thing I encountered upon opening my eyes was the sun.

No, it was a stained-glass window with such elaborate patterns that it could be mistaken for the sun, and even more splendid and voluminous golden hair than the stained glass. Behind the golden-haired woman, a halo of light shone.

After confirming the woman’s appearance, I froze solid, unable to say a word. My mind was completely bleached and all thoughts that had surfaced melted away.

It wasn’t because I was overwhelmed by the warm and cozy atmosphere, nor because I was captivated by the splendor of the stained glass and the woman’s beauty, nor because I was moved by the merciful and benevolent woman’s voice.

“I welcome you in the name of the Sun. You, who were once called a heretic.”

‘What… is that?’

The woman’s attire.

‘Is that clothes?’

It was because of the incredibly revealing attire worn by the woman in front of me.