Chapter 158
At Eliza’s cry, Kido snapped back to herself, eyes flying open.
The smile that had been playing on her lips vanished and pressed into a flat line.
“How do you know about that?”
“You told me yourself. You said he’s alive, but considered dead. In the scriptures of the Barael Sacred Positional Church of Duelern, there’s a passage about ‘the dead who yet live.’ Saints who oppose evil, begin their spiritual discipline anew in human bodies, and ascend to true godhood after saving people.”
Duelern had adopted the Barael Sacred Positional Church as its state religion. a denomination derived from the Eloastre Order.
Its teaching that anyone could become a savior, and therefore all human beings should be valued, was why its culture emphasized human-centered philosophy over religion.
Eliza sighed and added:
“Interpreted differently, that means it’s possible for a god to seize someone else’s body by divine authority. I may not look it, but I’m royalty. I have a fair idea of why this country wages war. And I know I was taken hostage.”
She may have seemed naive and foolish, having grown up in a nation that valued human life, but she was no imbecile.
Was all that relentless positivity a defense mechanism? As Kido pondered this, Eliza clasped her hand and spoke.
“Kido. Since I’ve learned your secret, I’ll share one of mine.”
***
The Annex, Building B. The Warden’s office.
El sat on the sofa, his uniform coat draped over his shirt.
A wine bottle on the table lifted itself into the air, tilting to pour crimson liquid into an empty glass.
El stared into the swirling red wine, lost in thought.
‘Shall we make a wager? Whether you can perfectly empty your mind against every temptation and trial I offer.’
Long, long ago, there had been an incarnation of evil, a demon, who had dogged him relentlessly during his ascetic training, trying to derail him.
‘To kill the self and reach the realm of nothingness when the world has so many entertaining pleasures. What you call endurance is just self-harm.’
The demon had tried to lure him with worldly pleasures: liquor and cigars, gambling, debauchery.
‘I once gave a certain author the ability to make his parents walk in every time he viewed a risqué scene, and that became the origin of the force-quit function[1]…’
Like a street performer, the demon had spouted every manner of obscenity and lewd joke.
‘I think you just laughed? So you do enjoy these debased jokes. For a cloistered saint, you’re surprisingly open.’
He hadn’t laughed at the joke itself.
He’d simply found it amusing, the way the demon clung to him, trying so desperately hard.
The way it would suddenly plop into his lap, or startle him, or pinch his cheek while he slept, all of it had the look of pure, unadulterated wickedness.
At last, when he shook off the endless temptations and finally set out toward the Gate of Saints, the demon, having lost their wager, removed the jet-black lace that covered his eyes.
And with the pomegranate-red eyes it had hidden beneath shining with joy, it spoke:
‘Actually, I’m the one who won. During all those dreary hours of your training, I was always by your side. You were never bored or lonely, thanks to me.’
Throughout his long years of asceticism, the demon god had been at his side, and so he had never felt loneliness.
He had failed to free himself from the solitude buried at the deepest stratum of his heart.
As a result, Eloastre became an incomplete god, one who had never fully shed human desire.
‘Of course things stagnate when they stay in one place. You’re an unfinished, warped failure of a creation. But in my eyes, you are a masterpiece beyond compare.’
To the half-made god, the demon smiled beautifully.
“Imperfection is beautiful. I look forward to the imperfect world you will create.”
El, alone with his memories, drew a cigar from his coat and placed it between his lips, murmuring:
“Tedious. Through all eternity.”
Eternal solitude, and the tedium, the hollowness of a world where everything went as he willed it.
These were sensations and emotions a true god should never have felt.
Clatter—
A commotion erupted outside the door, and then it burst open.
Through the gap charged Kido in her grey-green prison uniform, pink hair tied high and streaming behind her like a commander’s pennant.
“Let go of me! I need to do it with that man right now!”
It seemed the Hour of Wickedness had triggered.
The guard who’d been trying to restrain her shouted, face drained of color:
“Do what with him?! Have you lost your mind?!”
“Five minutes is all I need. I can get it done quickly.”
“Eeek! Five minutes?! Don’t you dare disrespect His Divinity!”
The guard shrieked and tried to clamp a hand over Kido’s mouth, but it was too late.
“I’m telling you, my body can’t function without that sexy bishop! He needs to take responsibility!”
Her desperate cry echoed beyond the room, reverberating through every corner of the corridor.
At this nuclear-grade declaration, the guard who’d been suppressing the disturbance gaped at El, stunned senseless.
“Huh…”
El, who had been watching the pink-haired gremlin, let his mouth fall slightly open.
The cigar perched between his lips dropped to the floor and rolled away.
Translation Notes
[1] ↩
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