[Faced with the sudden accusation from the figures who had appeared, you do not visibly react.]
[You always knew this day would come. Having falsely taken the title of a Church sage, you knew it was only a matter of time before the matter came to light.]
[You are neither surprised nor flustered. You simply watch them step out of the shadows.]
The cold, rasping words continued to echo through the air.
Though the voice itself was not loud, it spread endlessly through the vast height and breadth of the library.
Wind swept down from the high windows. Under the sunset, dust motes shivered harder between pages and paper, as though they too felt the cold, murderous dread in the air.
And the figures stepping out from the cracks of shadow between the bookshelves were not alone.
They moved in groups of three.
As they emerged, they spread into a triangular formation, surrounding Lu Kang and placing him at the very center of the diagonal lines.
They were clergy in name, but nothing about them resembled ordinary priests or worshippers. Rather, they looked like assassins who walked in darkness.
They wore long black cloaks, with hoods obscuring their faces, black gloves covering their hands, and black boots striking the smooth library tiles with crisp, measured taps.
Their entire bodies were concealed. The only visible sign of any link to the Church was the silver cross hanging at each of their chests.
Lu Kang watched them advance and casually flicked the cross hanging from his own chest.
"So only ordinary Executors came?" he said. "I'd thought I might get to see someone from the strongest department among the Executors—the Burial Agency."
His expression remained utterly composed, as though the figures before him were not executioners come to pass judgment, but guests arriving from afar.
"For someone like you, we are more than sufficient."
The rasping voice spoke again.
This time it came from all directions, as though none of the three men were speaking individually—and yet all three were speaking at once.
They exchanged glances.
That Lu Kang had already discovered their presence did not surprise them in the slightest.
Or rather—they had never intended to hide.
That was confidence.
And arrogance.
"Priest Lu Kang Luvister," they said, "do you confess your sin?"
Lu Kang merely shook his head.
Priest.
This was the seventh rank of the Church hierarchy, the most common priestly level, and the rank under which Lu Kang himself was listed within the Church's records.
He was, undeniably, a registered member of the clergy.
No matter what else was true, in this simulated life he had indeed been raised by the abbess of a convent.
Even if that abbess had been a most unusual woman, and even if Lu Kang neither truly believed in nor felt reverence toward God, he had nonetheless grown up immersed in a world steeped in faith.
So of course these people could easily speak his name.
And Lu Kang also knew very well what kind of organization the Church really was.
He knew exactly what sort of vast beast it was beneath the face it presented to the world—whether that face appeared pure and austere, or corrupt and decayed.
And when confronted with "heresy" hidden within its own ranks, the Church had never once shown mercy.
Those responsible for dealing with heretics were the Executors—
the Church's executioners.
As Lu Kang shook his head, he had just begun to lift a foot when he suddenly paused.
Around him, light slowly emerged in the air, forming unseen walls. At the same time, beneath his feet, a circular pattern began to glow and expand, sketching itself into being as though rising from beneath water.
Lu Kang let out a soft breath.
Just as he'd thought.
It was a sealing formation.
With the points where the three Executors stood as its corners, the barrier connected itself into a triangular cage.
As Lu Kang had already guessed, the three men had been waiting inside the library for him all along.
And they had laid their trap long before he arrived.
Now he stood trapped inside the formation, unable to advance or retreat, and seemingly cut off from the outside world—cut off not only physically, but also from all mysterious links beyond the boundary.
"Priest Lu Kang Luvister," they asked again, "do you confess your sin?"
This time their voices were louder.
Much louder.
The sound rang like a great bell, or like the questioning call of a god descending from the highest heaven, enough to shake the liver and gall and strike terror into the soul.
Lu Kang thought dryly to himself: Did you bring an amplifier? Is being loud supposed to be impressive?
Then again… it was rather impressive.
Even so, his expression remained calm.
He had, after all, grown up being frightened.
And more importantly, he had expected this scene from the very beginning.
"So this is the stake you prepared for me?" he asked. "If I confessed, would you burn me alive right here, the way your Church once persecuted witches in the Middle Ages?"
"All men bear original sin," the Executors answered in unison after exchanging glances. "But your sin is greater. Therefore punishment is only just—"
Lu Kang smiled.
"And what sin, exactly, must I confess to? The sin of falsely taking the title of a Church sage and committing fraud?"
"Or…"
"The sin of killing the piece your Church planted in the Tsar's court—Grigori Rasputin?"
The young priest's words fell into the air.
At once, the wind coming from above sent pages in the bookshelves whirling into a noisy flutter like leaves in a storm. The beams of sunset, now narrowing as the light waned, stained the towering shelves on every side with broad mottled bands like a painted scroll.
And the eyes of the three Executors darkened at once.
Hearing Lu Kang's words, all three pupils contracted sharply.
In the next second, Lu Kang suddenly raised a hand—
and in that instant between wind's fall and the turning of pages,
the clothes on his body lit up.
The mottled formulas engraved upon them connected all at once into a territory—a workshop—the Sanctuary formulas flooding with magic and igniting in a single flash.
His outer robe opened like wings.
And with a great crash, the barrier woven by the Executors shattered outright, dissolving into drifting fragments of light across the vast central space of the library.
Dust and radiance exploded outward together, and the ring of bookshelves shook, sending down showers of dust.
"You—"
The Executors stepped back to avoid the shockwave of the shattered barrier, bracing themselves against the still-quivering shelves behind them.
Their gazes fixed on the young priest standing within the spreading haze.
His cloak flared like the wings of an angel.
And yet their gravity did not come from his appearance.
It came from his words.
"You're curious how I knew about Rasputin, aren't you?"
Faced with their shaken expressions, Lu Kang could not help smiling broadly.
Of course he knew.
Because behind Rasputin… was the Holy Church itself.
Even now, his title as "sage" had only just been established within the court. It had not yet truly spread, had not yet become widely known. And yet the Church's Executors had already arrived at his door.
Meanwhile, in the original history, Rasputin had spent years using God's name to deceive Nicholas and Alexandra within the court, wielding power as he pleased—and the Church had never once moved against him.
That difference in treatment alone was a glaring piece of evidence.
And it explained something else as well: why Nicholas II and Alexandra, as emperor and empress of Russia, had reacted to Rasputin like ordinary people.
In this world, common folk knew nothing of Mystery—but no state machinery anywhere was entirely without magi in its service. Under normal circumstances, a monarch ruling a great nation could not possibly know nothing about the supernatural.
There was only one explanation:
they had been deliberately isolated from the truth from the very beginning.
And in Russia, the only force capable of doing that was the Church.
Rasputin had been sent into the court by the Church.
And his purpose was, most likely, to siphon off wealth from the imperial household before the empire finally collapsed—to take a share from the crumbling edifice before it became ruins.
Yes.
The Church had never been a purely glorious institution.
After growing into this vast power over two thousand years, it was no longer anything so simple or clean.
Lu Kang would not say all of that aloud.
Instead, he merely grinned and looked at the three men before him.
"I've heard," he said, "that the Church's inner institutions understand some of the principles of magecraft, yet always brand it heresy and disdain its use. Instead, you wield a different mystery—something called 'miracles.'"
"From what I can see now, these so-called miracles are really just this: the faith of believers all over the world in the God of your Church. Human thought itself is an unreadable kind of Mystery. Faith is too. Though it is thin, unstable, and hard to control—even after being filtered through layer upon layer of thought, uncertainty remains immense—still, when enough believers' faith is gathered together, it can become a vast foundation for Mystery. It can even…"
"become an invisible 'god.'"
That was the source of miraculous power.
It came from faith.
And from the god toward whom that faith was directed.
It was fundamentally different from the way magi preserved Mystery through bloodlines, crests, and ritual formulas.
Miracles took the heart as their foundation.
Faith as their basis.
Religion as their bond.
And that was why the Executors, even after trapping Lu Kang, had not attacked immediately.
Because the idealism at the core of miracles meant that they had to preserve their own devout conviction and conduct what they believed to be a true and righteous judgment upon him.
Even if it was only a hollow imitation of justice, the ritual itself was necessary to activate the Mystery.
That was also why they had raised their voices so loudly, until they sounded like a trumpet of divine judgment descending from heaven itself—to crush Lu Kang's will before them.
If Lu Kang had truly believed himself guilty—
even a little, even unconsciously—
then he would have remained trapped forever and died without question.
This was a clash of wills.
The manifestation of the power of miracles.
Unfortunately for them…
"Willpower loses to language."
"Your hearts have already wavered because I exposed the Church's conspiracy."
The words settled.
So did the dust.
Lu Kang stepped calmly out of the encirclement, his cloak rolling like wings. The first layer of Sanctuary formulas blazed forth once more.
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