Soft light, warmer even than sunlight, shone across the girl’s pale skin.

Aviva felt as though she were soaking in a summer spring. The warmth that spread through her was soothing but not scorching, moving from the outside in, little by little driving away all the cold and pain that had lingered in her body for so long.

She opened her eyes and saw that somewhat frightening face—deep-set, imposing, but not frightening at all.

“Well?”

Muen asked, “How does your body feel?”

“I feel...”

Aviva sat up and slowly moved her limbs. As that ease and strength she had not felt in who knew how long returned to every part of her body, her eyes—once as dim as the shadowy room she had never been able to leave—began to gleam with light and tears.

“I feel so light. Really light. My stomach doesn’t hurt at all anymore, and that weakness I had before is gone too. I feel... healthy!”

It was a sensation difficult to put into words.

But to Aviva... it felt like being born again.

“Looks like it really is cured.”

Muen was infected by her joy as well, and nodded with a smile.

“T-this... is this the Goddess’s blessing?”

Aviva still found it hard to believe, because as far as she was concerned, all she had done was take a short nap.

There had been no pain, no price to pay, and that terminal illness that had plagued her for who knew how long had so easily become nothing more than an insignificant memory of the past, no longer able to bind her ◈ Nоvеlіgһт ◈ (Continue reading) present or her future.

“To be precise, it was the Goddess’s Holy Light. A large amount of high-grade Holy Light entered your body and directly broke down the tumor. No pain, no scar, and no aftereffects.”

“Holy Light... is really that incredible?”

“It really is. It can heal injuries and cure illness... Holy Light really is a convenient and remarkable thing. Wouldn’t you two agree?”

Muen glanced at Bishop Kore and the nun off to the side.

“Y-yes, yes, yes!” the two of them nodded frantically, looking as though they were ready to recite a sonnet in praise of Holy Light on the spot. “Holy Light is wonderful, Holy Light is wonderful, there’s nothing in this world better than Holy Light!”

“I see. Then I really should thank—hm?”

Aviva rose as well and turned toward them, intending to offer a quick, polite word of thanks, but then she let out a small sound of surprise.

Because she realized that Bishop Kore and the nun beside him looked... why were they both so pale?

Especially Bishop Kore. Aviva felt that even at her weakest and most miserable, her face had never been that white. There was not the slightest trace of blood left in that old face of his.

It was almost as if he were the one who had been deathly ill and had only just been cured.

“A-are you all right, Bishop Kore?”

“I’m fine! Fine!”

Bishop Kore twitched and forced a smile. “How could I not be? I’m doing very well, extremely well, couldn’t be better. I was just filled with the beautiful power of Holy Light. What could possibly be wrong with me?”

“I-is that so?”

Aviva tilted her head. Something felt a little off, but she could not quite put her finger on it.

Still, that was not important.

“Mr. Bruce.”

Her thanks toward Bishop Kore and the nun had only been out of courtesy, but when she turned back around, Aviva bent her still-young body—only just recovered from serious illness—in a deeply earnest bow to Muen.

“I’ll definitely pay back that two hundred thousand!”

Aviva was a very smart girl.

The truth was, when Muen first offered to pay that money, she had already vaguely sensed that Mr. Bruce was not simply doing a good deed out of pure kindness. He seemed to be trying to use her illness to achieve some purpose.

But whatever that purpose was, as far as Aviva was concerned, the person who had truly saved her, saved Pero, and saved the entire orphanage was not the bishop, and it was not the Goddess.

It was this mysterious Mr. Bruce.

“Really, thank you so much, Mr. Bruce. I’ll do everything I can to repay your kindness.”

As she said that, a faint blush rose to Aviva’s face, and she added shyly, “If, like Pero said, you really do have some kind of special fetish, I wouldn’t necessarily be against—”

“Wait, wait, wait—stop right there, stop!”

Seeing this probably-underage girl veering the conversation straight into deeply dangerous territory, Muen hurriedly cut her off with a stiff face.

“If this goes any farther, it’s going to get very dangerous. I have no desire to get hacked to pieces and dumped in a river!”

“Huh? But...”

Aviva twisted her fingers together, looking a little disappointed, and muttered, “Two hundred thousand isn’t a small amount for me. If I don’t repay it that way, it might take me a very, very long time.”

“At your age, don’t keep thinking about stuff like that. No wonder Pero turned out like that—it was from learning it from you.”

Muen flicked her forehead.

“And actually, I didn’t really pay anything at all. You don’t need to pay back that two hundred thousand.”

“Huh? W-why?”

“That’s something you should thank Bishop Kore for. Just now, after a round of friendly discussion between us, he was so moved by what you and Pero have been through that he decided not to charge anything and to treat you for free... isn’t that right, Your Excellency?”

“Y-yes, yes, yes, yes, yes!”

Bishop Kore nodded so hard it looked like his head might fall off. “That’s absolutely right. I was moved—deeply moved. I have never witnessed such sincere love...”

“It’s familial love. They’re siblings.”

“Ah, right! Familial love! Such noble familial love. I was so moved I nearly burst into tears!”

Bishop Kore wiped at the corners of his eyes—still wet with tears that had not fully dried even now.

“When faced with feelings like that, how could I possibly take money? Not only will I refuse to charge anything, I’ll also increase support for the orphanages under Kore Church’s care. I absolutely won’t allow a tragedy like this to happen again!”

“Huh?”

Aviva froze completely, staring in bafflement.

This was so strange...

After taking a nap, it felt like her illness had been cured, yes—but somehow Bishop Kore’s brain seemed to have gone wrong instead.

Could it be...

Aviva’s eyes quietly darted back and forth between Bishop Kore and Mr. Bruce a few times. While she had been asleep, had something happened between the bishop and Mr. Bruce?

Could it be that Mr. Bruce’s special fetish was not young girls, but...

“All right, you should head back now.”

Unaware that the storm of speculation inside Aviva’s head was still raging on, Muen rubbed her hair.

“Your brother and your family are all waiting for you.”

“Then... what about you, Mr. Bruce?”

“I still have things of my own to do.”

“Oh. I understand.”

Aviva nodded obediently, then looked at him with bright anticipation.

“Mr. Bruce, you’ll come to the orphanage again, right?”

“...Maybe.”

If all these illusions were still there by then.

Muen added that last part silently to himself.

“Then I’ll wait for you. When that time comes, Pero and I will definitely thank you properly!”

Aviva gave another bow, then ran out of the Hall of Sacraments in a lively skip. Outside, Pero and the others from the orphanage were anxiously waiting.

“Why bother... This doesn’t even count as fate.”

Watching Aviva’s retreating back, Muen suddenly let out a soft sigh.

It was impossible to tell who exactly he was saying it to.

...

...

“So you’re certain that’s everything you know?”

“Certain! Absolutely certain!”

Faced with Muen’s casual questioning, Bishop Kore bent at the waist and nodded obsequiously, all his former dignity gone.

“I absolutely wouldn’t dare hide anything from you, Mr. Bruce. I’ve already told you everything I know. I even gave you the channel through which I ‘offered’ funds to that important figure. You...”

“Relax. I’m not some great villain. As long as you behave, I’m not going to do anything to you.”

Muen stroked Bishop Kore’s head as well, but unlike when he had touched Aviva earlier, now he was patting him like a dog.

“Th-thank you.” Bishop Kore forced out a fawning smile, looking only sorry that he hadn’t grown a tail to wag.

“Good. Keep an eye on him, understood?” Muen said to the nun at the side.

“Yes.”

The nun stared fixedly at Bishop Kore, not the slightest trace of her former reverence remaining.

“Please rest assured, sir. I’ll keep watching him.”

“...”

Bishop Kore’s cheek twitched, but there was nothing he could do.

Now, he truly was nothing but a dog.

And this nun—whom he had once kept and could discard whenever he pleased—had now become his leash.

Perhaps this really was the Goddess’s punishment upon him.

“Stay put for now. If anything changes inside the Church, inform me immediately.” 𝚏𝐫𝚎𝗲𝕨𝐞𝐛𝕟𝚘𝐯𝚎𝗹.𝕔𝐨𝗺

“Yes...”

After giving a few more instructions, Muen also left the Hall of Sacraments.

He looked up. The circular dome of Saint Blancfazesiya Cathedral loomed even closer than it had from the orphanage. It was like a setting sun, countless times grander than any real one, occupying nearly half the sky in Muen’s field of vision.

“A traitor... somewhere in the upper ranks of the cathedral?”

Using the information he had gotten from Bishop Kore, Muen once again sank into thought.

“No. For the moment, it still can’t be confirmed that Bishop Kore’s superior is someone from the Salvation Society. It’s just... I have to prepare for the worst and assume that possibility.”

Muen still remembered what Liya had once said: after Kaya Gaius defected from the Church, the Church had carried out an exceptionally brutal and bloody purge and screening within its own ranks, specifically to prevent the Salvation Society—its “most familiar enemy”—from infiltrating the Church and causing some horrifying disaster.

So corruption in local figures like a Great Sister or a bishop through special means was one thing, but following ordinary logic, Muen found it difficult to imagine that the Church’s true upper ranks—those above them by one level, or many levels—could also be seduced by the Salvation Society’s bullshit doctrine.

And yet, following logic just the same, if the problem really did lie within the Church’s upper ranks, then many of the strange irregularities he had seen before would suddenly have a reasonable explanation.

“I need to investigate further. I need to find some way into that cathedral. If possible, it would be best to go directly to that [real...]”

Dong—

Just as he was thinking that, the faint toll of a bell sounded from an extremely distant place.

And compared to that indistinct little sound—so faint it could almost be ignored entirely—Muen clearly felt the cool strands falling on his skin suddenly disappear.

The rain had stopped.

A faint scorched stench drifted in on the breeze.

“This is...”

Muen’s pupils contracted sharply. His body tensed at once as he swept his surroundings with wary eyes.

He was still outside Kore Church, only a step away from Saint Blancfazesiya Cathedral.

Nothing around him had changed. The greenery planted around the church remained lush and vivid despite the deep autumn, and it seemed as though Muen had only stood there spacing out for a moment.

But something had changed.

For example, that nauseating scorched smell.

And the flickering firelight in the distance, bright enough to stain nearly half the sky red.

“I’m here again.”

Muen murmured in sudden realization.

“So that’s it. Whether it’s raining or not is the sign that separates the real from the false!”

But before Muen could feel any satisfaction at having confirmed his suspicion, a familiar voice—one he absolutely did not want to hear—rang out beside his ear at the same time.

“Found... you...”

Killing intent came from afar, and with it came that terrifying power of destruction.

Damn it!

Muen dodged in a hurry and cursed under his breath.

That damned old woman—why won’t she leave him alone?