Take a good look: this man is named Schwenk, and at this very moment he has unexpectedly come face to face with his own nightmare once again.
"Why are you here?!"
Schwenk felt a nausea like he'd stuffed himself with ten catties of cow dung until his belly was about to burst; amid his shock, the memory of that day's humiliation—of being bound up—came surging into his mind.
Mustn't be afraid! No need to fear! That weak self of the past was already dead!
Now—now he was the Archbishop of the New God's Church; with a single command he could take down this damned member of the Demon Race!
"Who were you again?"
"Quick—huh?"
"Have we met before?"
Schwenk whipped around abruptly, so that neither she nor the believers inside the tent could see his face, twisted and undone with rage.
Who am I?! She actually asks who I am?! How could she have forgotten me?! This bastard of the Demon Race who desecrated his own Scripture and threw his whole life into utter chaos!
"?"
No matter how she tried, Nanoda simply couldn't recall just who this person before her was, though he seemed to be acting as if he knew her.
"All of you, withdraw. I wish to have a good talk with her."
Schwenk suddenly twisted his head back around with startling speed, revealing a smile.
Hearing this, the believers within the tent took their leave one after another of their own accord, while the monk who had brought Nanoda over pressed his palms together and said to her, "May the divine spirits watch over you."
"Have you seen a female Mage with a green braid, carrying a staff like a red spear? Around twenty years of age—she's my disciple."
Paying no mind to the strange shifts in his expression, Nanoda went straight at him with her missing-person inquiry.
"Insolence!" Schwenk failed to hold back his anger for another moment, then answered honestly, "I haven't seen her."
"Oh. Sorry to bother you." With that, Nanoda turned to leave.
"Wait! Aren't you the least bit curious how I know you? Doesn't it strike you as strange that I don't expose your true identity?"
"Because you're a good person?"
Nanoda's words nearly made Schwenk topple over on flat ground.
"Hold on a moment—how about we make a deal? Aren't you searching for your disciple? I can mobilize everyone to help you look! The New God's Faith has been established for quite some time now and has grown to a certain scale; our intelligence network covers a great many places as well!"
"So—what are the terms?" Nanoda was quite familiar with this manner of doing business.
"You go in my place, leading the army to face off against that Anhadī III!"
"With just these troops?"
"Are you looking down on the New God's Church?"
"You weren't, by any chance, planning to send everyone off to their deaths and then flee in the chaos, were you?"
Nanoda boldly voiced her thoughts.
Unexpectedly, Schwenk seemed to genuinely flinch with guilt for a moment, his tone even turning somewhat stiff.
"What nonsense are you spouting? With the protection of that great New God, we are all believers who are invincible in battle!"
"Is that so? Then why do you still need me to take part in the war in your stead?"
It must be said that Schwenk's clumsy acting and his glib, silver-tongued words were utterly mismatched.
"You—! You wouldn't want the people outside to know you're of the Demon Race either, would you?" His lie exposed, he could only choose to turn hostile outright.
"Well then—and you wouldn't want to be done in by me right here and now, would you?"
In the span of but a single breath, the tip of a broken horn was already pressed against Schwenk's neck—so fast that he had no time at all to see it clearly, let alone react.
"Eep, eep, eep!" Schwenk clamped his mouth shut.
"Why would you go and do something like that." Taking advantage of the motion, Nanoda swiftly seized and wrenched his arm back with her other hand.
"You really have forgotten everything! I'll have you know I am a devout believer of the Goddess's Order! To me, that inexplicable New God, and every single believer here—they are the heretics! All this 'divine child who discovered the new Scripture' business—one and all, in their self-righteousness, they pushed me up into this position I now hold. I can only... only hypocritically play along with them, biding my time. Ah, Goddess, please forgive me."
"Just kill me." As if having given up, Schwenk closed his eyes.
"What a wretched fellow you are—and yet a devout, foolish monk all the same. Well, since we once shared a bond, and you didn't die at my hands back then, I can give you one chance."
"Huh?" Should one call this member of the Demon Race foolish, or kindhearted? She would actually let him off just like that?
"Intelligence—on the movements of Ohaly's army, and intelligence from sending people to search for traces of my disciple. And on top of that, lend me all these troops."
"Just what exactly are you trying to do?"
Schwenk couldn't see through this member of the Demon Race before him.
"There are a few questions I'd like to go and ask."
Everything she had been through pointed toward the war and Ohaly's army. Nanoda began to grow curious: where would this war go on to point in the future, and might there be word of Yuna's whereabouts?
"Ahhhh! My Scripture!" Feeling the pouch at his waist suddenly grow light, Schwenk—as though his very lifeline had been seized in a fierce grip—abruptly let out an anguished wail.
"This, I'll hold onto for now. Once the matter is settled, I'll return it to you."
Since he was in fact a devout believer of the Goddess's Order, Nanoda had hit upon a way to keep him firmly in hand.
"How about this—I'll hand my bishop's office over to you as well, what do you say?" Perhaps because he had been through having his Scripture snatched away several times over, Schwenk's spirits recovered a bit faster than before.
Had he grown used to it? To having his beloved taken from him, time and time again. Such was the voice of his heart at this moment.
"I refuse."
It wasn't as though Nanoda hadn't considered it—reciting a few passages of scripture before the crowd, making the believers think she was God descended into the world, and perhaps thereby obtaining outright a power higher than a bishop's, making herself the divine child.
Too much trouble. She'd handed over even the administration of Gaderia entirely to Aaron; managing a church like this, brimming with fanatics—impossible.
In the darkness, a faint red-and-white flickered and danced playfully. The body, once heavy with tension, now felt light and soft, as if perched among the clouds—the lucid clarity that follows a sound sleep.
"Have I... arrived in heaven?" Yuna cracked open her tightly shut eyes; the light streaming in from outside the window left her, freshly awakened, a touch ill at ease.
"Grrrgle"—her stomach seemed to be lodging a protest.
Could it be that even in heaven, a person still got hungry?
"So you're awake."
The door was pushed open, and a tall man with a trash-can hood pulled down over his head walked in, carrying a plate of bread and a glass of milk.
It was only then that Yuna realized she didn't seem to be dead after all.
Beneath her was a soft, large bed; the wounds she'd taken from the Mana sword seemed long since to have been dressed with a cool ointment and bound in clean bandages.
"Macht..."
Her staff leaned against the wardrobe by the bed. The girl wanted to rise, but she was now a lamb wounded in all four limbs; no matter how she struggled, she couldn't get up or stir, and could only lie there in the gentle bedding, at others' mercy.
"Rest easy, I won't harm you. On the contrary, it was I who saved you from Solitär's hands."
Macht set the food down on the nightstand.
"Why? cough, cough, cough—" her voice was terribly weak.
"That existence Glück called his daughter—Lektire—her health was poor from a young age. As a butler, I learned no small number of ways to care for humans."
Macht speared a piece of bread, held a silk cloth beneath it with his other hand, and brought it to Yuna's lips.
Because he had that strange trash-can pulled over his head, Yuna couldn't make out his expression in the slightest.
Actually, more than that, what Yuna was even more curious about was this: with a trash-can sitting atop his head, how on earth could he see his surroundings clearly at all?
____
👻🔥Seek: Walnut-chan🔥👻
🔥 New history: A Martial Arts Master Will Never Be Humiliated
Let's hit these goals:
🎯 100 Powerstones = 1 extra chapter for the public!