Chapter 38

“Did you make an enemy of a mage? They sometimes dabble in curses, too. Has anyone asked for your fingernails or hair recently? You shouldn’t just give those things away.”

“I know that. I haven’t been involved with any mages lately, nor have I handed over any body parts.”

“Did you hear anything from the prayer-chanters?”

“I did.”

“And even after hearing that, you did that to your arm?”

Surely they must have told them it wasn’t because of the blessing prayer. Did he just not believe the explanation?

“They didn’t deny the link between my bad luck and the blessing prayer, either.”

“Really?”

That was unexpected. Prayer-chanters tend to be quite dogmatic. It’s because it’s hard to demonstrate the power of prayer if you doubt the god.

Sometimes there were prayer-chanters who distinguished between a god’s intention and their actual ability, but they were rare. Usually, thinking in such complex ways leads to a drop in ability. Since it’s easier to perform prayers when your thinking is simple, most prayer-chanters inevitably fall into the path of blind faith, even if they have to brainwash themselves. There weren’t many eccentrics who would choose the hard path when an easy one was right in front of them. Though, perhaps I’m not the one to talk, being an eccentric myself.

Anyway, was Felix’s acquaintance also an eccentric? Being a prayer-chanter and doubting the prayer is truly no easy task. It was a line of thinking that could only be achieved by breaking the blindness of believing that god is perfect.

“They said that rather than a problem with the prayer itself, perhaps this prayer had displeased another divine being.”

“That’s a novel perspective, at least.”

Ugh, what a letdown. I’d felt a spark of excitement thinking there might be a prayer-chanter who thought like me, but as expected, that wasn’t the case.

“I thought that being was you.”

“What?”

My voice came out crooked on its own, wondering what kind of nonsense he was spouting. Felix looked down at the hand resting on his arm and said calmly, “They said it must be a demigod, as the influence was too trivial to be a true god. But among the people I know, you’re the only one who exists outside the realm of human ability.”

Then, he talked about me as he had seen me in the Lallanne territory. I lived like a normal person now, but back then, I lived without eating anything like food. In that cold place, I could stay for days without a single log of firewood, without moving like a still-life painting, and I didn’t freeze to death.

“Above all, your attitude was incredibly strange from the day I received the prayer.”

A moment ago, I’d reflexively expressed displeasure because it felt like he was blaming me out of the blue, but only then could I think it over carefully. Indeed, I hadn’t felt good ever since I saw Felix’s prayer mark. My head had been very noisy whenever I faced him. But it was an ambiguous issue to admit to readily without evidence, so I tried to refute it first.

“What reason would I have to be displeased by that?”

Felix hesitated for a moment, then glanced at me.

“…Because you’re a heretic.”

“That’s a dangerous thing to say.”

How did he know? I didn’t think I had ever uttered a word about the Master. I hadn’t, right? Suddenly, I felt unsure.

“Did you happen to tell that prayer-chanter about me?”

“No. But they were the ones who dropped hints that seemed to assume it was you first.”

“They thought of me right away even though you didn’t say a thing?”

“It seems they had been watching you for a while.”

I don’t know if I’ll end up being burned at the stake soon. Felix spoke as if making excuses.

“But since I didn’t admit it, they won’t be able to do anything right away.”

“The very fact that you were suspected is the problem.”

I couldn’t know what might become evidence in the future. They might even try to commit perjury. As I gripped my head and groaned, Felix said cautiously, “Shall I kill them?”

“What?”

“Since it’s at the hypothesis stage now, I don’t think they’ve told anyone else yet. Even back then, I took care to make sure no one around us could eavesdrop.”

“We don’t know if that’s still the case.”

“That’s true. If I ask who they told and then kill them…”

“Let’s drop that ‘kill them’ hypothesis for a second. Why are you suddenly saying things like that? If they are an acquaintance who would perform a blessing prayer for free, I’d think they’d have a pretty high opinion of you.”

“I don’t care what they think.”

On the contrary, Felix said he was on the side of disliking that prayer-chanter.

“If they’re capable of performing a blessing prayer, they wouldn’t be an ordinary prayer-chanter. At minimum, they’d be high-ranking priest level; are you two acquainted through Temple commissions?”

“Yes. The Saint.”

“The Saint?!”

“Yes.”

“How do you know the Saint?!”

“Well, because it was the Saint who delivered the Temple’s commission?”

“Why would the Saint do such menial work?!”

“How should I know? Sometimes she tags along when we operate on Temple-related business.”

What kind of mission could it be that the Saint would personally issue a commission and tail the mercenaries? Moreover, if it were a commission placed with a mercenary group, it wouldn’t be something that could be disclosed externally. Either it was something that would cause social chaos if revealed, or it was shadow work that wasn’t good for the Temple’s image.

After hesitating, I asked cautiously, “If I ask what the mission is, will you answer me?”

“They said something about preparing for a war of the gods, or whatever.”

Felix answered readily. He didn’t even seem to be worried, which made me worry even more.

“Is it okay for you to just tell me that?”

“What’s the problem, as long as you don’t go blabbing it to the outside? I’m sure you know it’s a secret, too.”

“That’s exactly why—how can you trust my mouth and just say it so easily?”

“What’s the matter? You were the one who asked first.”

He asked me back, what difference it made whether he worried or not, since I would have been told eventually. When he said that, I was left with nothing to say.

“No… yeah. Okay, thank you.”

“But I don’t know the details. We only do the work of setting up pillars at certain points. They said they would use those to connect the barrier.”

That was practically telling me everything. I thought of the Saint who had handed me her wand. If she had been paying attention to me since then, it would be difficult to view it as simple goodwill.

By the way, a war of the gods won’t happen.

Even if it were a god from another world unrelated to the Master, once they crossed the boundary while maintaining their divinity, they were destined to step into the Lallanne territory first. That was possible because I had made it the point they had to pass through primarily to get from the outside into this world. That was possible because I held the power of the Lallanne territory in its entirety.

Furthermore, between the Lallanne territory and this world, there is a petit-universe created by stealing the Master’s power. Even if they escape the territory, arriving in this world is another matter.

Blocking them purely with force would have been difficult given my ability. So, I designed it from the start with the sole intention of being incredibly bothersome. It was a success if I could just make them think it was better to look toward another world because it was irritating and cumbersome.

However, since it was a law I had created, it wasn’t as if I could be absolutely certain it was absolute. Granting absoluteness to a law is something my rank is insufficient for.

Therefore, I think it’s not bad for the Temple to prepare for a contingency in their own way. But the problem is that it’s uncertain if the Temple’s purpose is truly only that. The moment I received the wand from the Saint was already after I had finished sealing the Master. The anomalous phenomena caused by the Master would have been gradually subsiding. If she was aware of that fact and had my connection in mind, she might have been thinking something a little different.

“Tell me exactly what you and the Saint talked about regarding the blessing prayer, word for word.”

“Word for word?”

Felix rolled his eyes, looking troubled. He scratched his head, saying his memory wasn’t that good.

“Even just the parts you remember is fine.”

If it seems like something is missing in the flow, I can ask about it then and there. Then, details might come back to him belatedly.

“Okay, for now…”

It took about two hours to discuss the story related to the Saint. The blessing prayer story finished quickly, but as I pressed him about his connection with the Saint having existed since before then, it naturally stretched out.

“So that was it. No wonder I thought you were acting strange.”

Thanks to that, I was able to understand everything, including why Felix had knelt down and begged for forgiveness the day before. The reason for carving out his skin and his resolve were also fully conveyed to me. And on that point, I couldn’t say a single word.

Of course, from a human perspective, I think he did something unnecessary. I wanted to scold him and tell him not to do such strange things. But a part of my soul clearly knew. He might think it was merely his personal will and resolve, but in my eyes, it isn’t. Rather, it was an action that stemmed from his instincts taking precedence.