Raphaella Theocracy – 6

“We meet again, Honored Guest-isiyeo.”

Selene bowed her head slightly towards me, showing her respect. Unlike our first meeting, when she had her face barely visible, deeply covered by her robe, she was now dressed in the attire of an Inquisitor.

Her silver hair, mixed with gray, swayed slightly behind her back. It was tied in a ponytail near the crown of her head, but it was long enough to wrap around her body several times over.

Some of her bangs fell near her lips, and through them, her violet eyes, identical in color to the Moon Pope’s, were visible. Perhaps due to the shape of her eyes, her overall impression was quite sharp.

Her body, packed with firm muscles, was clad in translucent tights, similar to those worn by the Battle Nuns under her command.

She wore armor, half gray and half silver, below both her elbows and knees, but everything else was covered by tights that clung tightly to her body.

The curves of her body were very explicitly revealed, and the translucent material made her bare skin inside almost completely visible. Her muscles, which seemed not just firm but even hard to the touch, stood out even more.

Of course, there was no underwear line, as if she wore nothing underneath. In fact, the area of clothing covering her body was significantly less than that of the Battle Nuns under her command.

Fortunately, perhaps thanks to her meager chest, comparable to Erica’s, it was only *that* much.

“Tsk.”

Stella openly clicked her tongue. In contrast to Selene, whose face was as impassive as ever, Stella’s usual cheerful smile was nowhere to be seen; she wore a very displeased expression.

“……How did Inquisitor-nim know to come here?”

“I came to offer assistance.”

It was an irrelevant answer. I had asked how she knew to come at this exact moment, but she said she came to offer assistance. Could it be that she was watching me from afar?

“Shouldn’t you not be here, Inquisitor?”

Stella seemed extremely uncomfortable. Her mouth was smiling, but her eyes weren’t smiling at all.

“The Sun does not interfere with the Moon. And the Moon also does not interfere with the Sun. That’s tradition, isn’t it? Even if we overlook the fact that the Moon Pope instructed them to bring these people to the Theocracy, what is this now? Surely His Holiness the Pope didn’t order you to help Honored Guest-nim again, did he?”

“I have not violated tradition, Inquisitor. I am not attempting to interfere with the Sun’s domain, but rather to offer assistance to Honored Guest-nim.”

To me, it seemed like the same thing, but perhaps there was some hidden meaning in her words, as Stella seemed to understand and backed down.

Selene, who had silenced Stella in an instant, took out the Divine Catalyst from her waist and infused it with Divine Power. White light, mixed with gray, shimmered like moonlight.

“Please remain still in that spot.”

Even after Selene said that, it felt like almost five seconds passed before a clear, ringing sound, *ttallang*, echoed.

The white light that emerged from the Divine Catalyst began to envelop my body. The light spread thinly over my entire skin, and something resembling a thin membrane appeared.

My skin, enveloped in Divine Power, emitted a subtle glow. I touched the faint aura of light surrounding my body with my hand. My fingers passed through the aura and touched my skin.

I felt no sensation. There was nothing to grasp, nothing to obstruct. It was a sight as if I were seeing a hallucination.

But it was by no means a hallucination.

“It is done. You will have no problems now.”

Selene, having finished her task, tied the Divine Catalyst to her waist. Stella was looking at Selene with a displeased gaze.

The divine spell Selene had just used.

It was a divine spell named ‘Moon’s Blessing’.

Its effect was to nullify damage if an enemy’s attack reached a level that would kill the player. In simple terms, it was a life +1. The duration was a basic 5 minutes.

It was essentially like gaining an extra life, making it a spell that was essential not only in vanilla BraDk 4 but also in the DkLa mod.

If only one could use it, that is.

Perhaps because of its ridiculously overpowered option of defending against lethal damage without question, the required stats were insanely high. It required 30 Faith and 60 Divine Power.

In the first playthrough, builds other than Cleric were practically unusable, and even for a Cleric, using it in the first playthrough meant sacrificing quite a lot of other stats, making it a huge burden.

For a Cleric, whose concept was slow but steady growth, making early-game leveling incredibly difficult, dumping stats into Faith and Divine Power like that meant losing far more than gaining.

“Therefore, would you please request a duel with the Inquisitor once more, Honored Guest-isiyeo?”

With those words, as if her mission was complete, Selene walked to a corner of the training ground far from us, then sat down with her knees bent and hugged her legs.

Her face, resting on her knees, stared intently in this direction. Her violet eyes were fixed on me as if nailed in place, showing no intention of looking away.

“You heard that, right?”

Although I felt absurd, I couldn’t let this opportunity pass. Stella, making a complicated expression as if all the world’s troubles were on her mind at my request, eventually nodded as if she had no choice.

I could ask Selene why and how she helped me after the duel was over. Anyway, she didn’t seem to intend to go back alone like that.

“Well, there are no more excuses. I understand. Can’t be helped, I guess.”

Stella shook her head from side to side and put strength into her right hand. The mace in her hand was lifted lightly, then slammed down with a *kung!* sound.

As if that was some kind of signal, the Battle Nuns around us moved in perfect unison around Stella and me.

They picked up the shields they had placed on the ground, firmly gripped their maces, and formed a circle around us. The shields, emblazoned with the order’s emblem, faced inward.

The inside of the circle, surrounded by Battle Nuns, was the training ground.

“I’ll let you decide the size of the training ground. Of course, it can’t be too big. How much wider should I make it for you?”

“It’s fine as it is.”

“Oh my, are you sure you’ll be alright? Even if you make excuses later that you lost because the space was too small, I’ll ignore them, you know?”

Stella covered her mouth with a surprised expression. It was wide enough that if I took just four or five steps back, I’d hit a shield, so her reaction was understandable.

But the size of the training ground was completely irrelevant to me. It wasn’t as if I’d fought Stella’s boss battle only once or twice; I could handle her whether the space was narrow or wide.

Actually, a wider space would be more comfortable for me, but to break the Inquisitor’s pride, I couldn’t change the size of the training ground.

Even in the game, if you defeat the Inquisitor without altering the size of the training ground, their dialogue changes. Something about being genuinely impressed by your skill.

Of course, this wasn’t a strictly necessary process. It was just a small act of revenge for her arbitrarily showing up last time and messing up the story.

“Your condition for defeat is the disappearance of the Moon’s Blessing imbued in your body. The moment the blessing vanishes, you lose. Understood? And, hmm, my condition for defeat is……”

“Let’s just say you lose if you feel like you’ve been hit enough.”

In terms of the system, the victory condition is to reduce the boss’s HP by 50%, just like in the Silver Dawn Knights’ entrance exam, but I can’t mention such specific numbers right now.

“……What will you do if I don’t admit defeat?”

“Then we’ll just have to fight until you admit it, what else can we do?”

I drew my blood-stained sword. The blade, catching the sunlight, gleamed red. Stella picked up her mace with an expression that seemed to say, “Oh, really?” That massive mace was easily lifted with one hand.

White light, mixed with yellow, swirled around the spiked head of the mace.

“Being too overconfident isn’t a good thing, you know? What will you do if you get knocked out in one hit?”

Ignoring her, I plunged the sword deep into my belly. Along with the sensation of blood draining into the blade, the red color of the blade deepened even further. When I pulled out the sword, blood dripped from the blade.

“You want to focus on the duel? Well, alright. Do you want to attack first? Or should I attack you?”

Without a word, I tipped the sword’s point up and down. Seeing that, Stella smiled brightly and slowly began to walk towards me. The color of the Divine Power imbued in her mace deepened even further.

The Inquisitor didn’t really have a fixed opening pattern. She simply used random patterns depending on the distance and the player’s movements.

The mace was raised high above her head. After identifying the pattern, I prepared to parry.

Stella swung her mace. Its head was aimed precisely at my head. Holding the blood-stained sword with both hands, I followed the natural movement of my arms, drawing an arc in the air.

With a *chaeng!* sound, the mace’s direction sharply changed. The recoil that came to my arm with a *jjiing-* wasn’t unbearable either.

The next attack followed without a break. I parried the mace swinging from left to right again, and for the last hit, considering the off-beat, I swung my sword one beat later.

As the mace was parried sideways with a strong metallic clang for the third and final hit, Stella’s body swayed for a moment. An expression of “Oh?” appeared on her face.

Stella tried to regain her stance as if to continue her attack, but my attack was faster. The blade, formed from gathered scarlet blood, grazed Stella’s arm.

“……”

Stella looked back and forth between the blood-stained sword and her mace with a dumbfounded expression.

One was merely an ordinary longsword that seemed unremarkable except for its red blade, and the other was a mace whose head alone was twice the size of a human head.

Logically, the sword should have shattered the moment the two weapons collided. But not only did the blade remain intact without breaking, the mace was even parried away, so she must have been wondering what was going on.

“My goodness, how did you just do that?”

“Well, I don’t know either.”

“If you don’t want to tell me, you can just say you don’t want to.”

Stella smiled sweetly. As expected of someone who serves the Sun Pope, her smile was warm and benevolent, just like Floretta’s.

“Because I’m going to find out for myself, starting now.”

“You failed in the end. What a pity.”

I sheathed the blood-stained sword, its buff having worn off. Gazes from all directions pricked at my skin. It was the gazes of the Battle Nuns, including Selene.

Stella was sitting slumped on the floor, staring up at me blankly.