Immortal's Ascending Path - 41
Episode-41. A Transmitter from the Mountain Pass.
The light from the moon illuminated the signet ring of Gallua, now devoid of life. Roberta felt a sense of irony as she looked at the seal engraved on the ring. The human the insignia symbolized loved their own kind more than anyone, yet the owner of the signet ring had hunted humans.
Roberta checked the corpse's belongings. She hoped to find other evidence, but there was only a blood-soaked handkerchief and a dagger. Nothing special.
A half-blood of human and fairy, Gallua had died because a blade pierced and ravaged their heart. But why? The corpse wore a smile. Even though there was no way they weren't in pain.
"You said it was the karma of the Pantheon," Roberta asked Ulrich standing next to her. When she asked what the culprit's motive was, he had answered that it was karma.
"Roberta, there are still many sects within the Public Church, aren't there?"
"Yes, there are. It's not called the Pantheon for nothing."
Because the Public Church had started as a collection of numerous sects.
The Public Church, commonly called the Pantheon, was born with the Third Empire, the Yocuster Dynasty. When the Second Empire, the Istria Dynasty, fell, many lords rose up, and Yocuster was one of them.
Unlike the previous two imperial dynasties, Yocuster could not rise on its own. Thanks to the Cormillius clan extending their hand, they were able to wear the imperial crown. The clan, which regarded the first emperor as its founder, became their patron, leading to the establishment of the Yocuster Dynasty with the consent of the lords.
At this time, Cormillius came to the forefront of history, backed by the Third Empire, and held the first Council. They gathered all the sects of the human world, and that was the beginning of the Public Church.
"Unless they believe in and follow only one God. There are too many gods. Not everyone can believe in the same god. The Pantheon tried to unify them, but it won't be easy."
Before the Public Church, each temple had different scriptures, or even if they were the same, there were significant differences in interpretation. Even today, with the Pantheon establishing the canon, heresy debates between sects still erupted.
"Are you saying this person belonged to the Pantheon?"
Ulrich shook his head.
"No, they were on the side that rejected the Council."
"You mean they were heretics."
"By your standards, yes."
She looked at him, her gaze questioning his meaning.
"Do you know why Cormillius didn't ascend to the throne themselves?"
Ulrich asked why a clan wielding such high authority would hand over the throne to Yocuster.
"I heard that Cormillius's influence was lower than it is now."
Because the long period of chaos had allowed the minions of evil gods to roam freely, and many groups disregarded divinity.
"Wrong. Even in those days, divinity was not ignored. Rather, they clung to it even more because of the chaos. Cormillius simply couldn't monopolize it."
Couldn't monopolize it?
"It sounds like there was another clan."
"You heard correctly. There were several clans with the same founder."
Her eyes widened.
"What?"
As always, this was a story she was hearing for the first time in her life.
She had received a high level of education even among Priests. She had once been a part of the Sacred Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, a high-level institution, thanks to a recommendation from Diocesan Alonso of the Nua Grand Temple.
The Sacred Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith was filled with documents that even Priests could not easily access. Although they mainly preserved human-centered documents, they were records that could not be obtained outside even for a fortune.
Even she, who had been a part of such a place, had never heard the story that a family inheriting divinity other than Cormillius had survived until then. She had learned that only Cormillius was the legitimate successor.
"Think about it. Cormillius's founder ruled the empire for over a thousand years. How many descendants would there be? Even if they weren't as obsessed with bloodlines as Cormillius, there were still descendants who remembered the founder in their own way."
When Roberta remained silent, Ulrich pointed to the signet ring.
"If I remember correctly, the insignia on that ring is the crest of a certain clan. No one knows now, but they were the representatives of the group that opposed the Council convened by Cormillius. They were probably declared heretics as a result."
Ulrich said that a battle between the legitimate successors inheriting divinity broke out, Cormillius won as history recorded, and the other clans met their end.
"Separatists, restorationists, sometimes minions of evil gods, they were given various names. Those who rejected the Council and kept their own interpretations didn't even have records left. Cormillius took care of it."
"It's hard to believe... It's not that I'm suspicious, it's just that it's so different from what I've learned."
"It can't be helped. There's a lot you can't know even if you've learned from the Sacred Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith. It's a truth you can't know unless you have sacred blood flowing through you or your faith is recognized as an inquisitor."
Roberta gave a helpless smile.
"Don't blindly believe the knowledge you gained from the Pantheon. The Pantheon doesn't release all knowledge. And not all the truth is there, there's more that's missing."
Suddenly, Diocesan Alonso's words came to mind. He had said the same thing. He had said that she would gain a lot of knowledge from the Sacred Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, but that it wasn't all the truth.
Did Alonso hear the same words from Ulrich when he was appointed as the Head Priest of Ditmarsken? She thought that might be the case.
A little later, she parted her lips and broke the silence.
"...Why did they oppose the Council?"
"Think back to the theme of the first Council."
After briefly recalling, her eyes trembled.
'Elevating the human Hestio to a divine being.'
When Cormillius first opened the Council, there was not just one theme. There were all sorts of themes, such as distinguishing between canon, apocrypha, and pseudepigrapha, uniting all sects into one, and electing a Pope. Among them, the most important was the elevation of Hestio's status.
"How can a mere human raise another human to the seat of heaven? That was the reason for their opposition."
Of course, their claim was not accepted. And the opponents did not accept the Council's decision either. They believed that the Third Age created by the Pantheon was a vain and false empire, and that the Public Church itself was wrong.
"But why does that lead to what happened here today?"
"As much as time has passed, blood has flowed. Now the cause doesn't matter. It's just two children who were brothers in the distant past trying to kill each other over one thing."
Ulrich let out a short breath. Roberta read the deep fatigue contained within it. His expression hadn't changed, but she, who had been by his side, could tell.
#
Ulrich and his party continued to search the village. They tried to find survivors, but there was no one alive and hiding. Only traces of people hunted by monsters were scattered. The monsters that Gallua controlled had no mercy.
Until the morning sun rose, they gathered the corpses and cremated them. There weren't enough hands to bury each one individually, and fortunately, cremation was common for funerals in Osnover.
Ulrich said that burial customs were common in the past, but the dead often rose due to the influence of the Ice Peninsula. In addition, cremation had become established as a result of the long civil war.
Roberta knelt before the flames and made a hand sign. She recited a prayer, hoping that the sins the villagers had committed in their lives would be forgiven, and that they would be sent to heaven from the afterlife judgment.
"Roberta."
When she finished praying and stood up, Ulrich called her. She turned her head. Fritz, who was behind her, also looked at him. The dwarf Toruhel and the village survivors were on the opposite side with the bonfire in between.
"Do you remember what you said to me when you first met me?"
Who are you, she had asked. She had heard that he was an old man who was three hundred years old, but he was a young man who looked to be her age, and he had even performed the Infant Sacrament, so she couldn't help but be suspicious.
"You've heard many names while being with me since then. Is there a name that you particularly remember?"
She said Laurent, Oscar, and Selim. Laurent had saved the great king of the Carbonihar Kingdom and revived the destroyed country, Oscar had made a dragon become interested in humans, and Selim had turned the desert into a jungle.
"I've used so many names. Most of them left extremely ordinary traces compared to the names I just mentioned. Leaving such large footprints is a very rare thing."
"Still, you've left several footprints that others can't leave even one in their lifetime."
Ulrich continued, saying it was natural.
"Let's make an assumption. Let's say you have a handful of seeds in your pocket. And as you walk along the road, you spill or plant seeds on the dirt floor at certain moments, would there be anything different if you checked the next day?"
Roberta flinched at the word 'seeds,' but she realized it was just a metaphor and chuckled. He was comparing relationships or encounters to seeds. She thought to herself that the metaphor was really bad.
"...No, there wouldn't be."
"What about a month later?"
"They would have sprouted and grown somehow."
"What about a year later, or several years later?"
"At that point, they would have borne fruit several times."
"That's what names are to me."
Roberta quietly faced him.
"Now, let's skip an immense amount of time. You planted a seed in a land you passed by without much thought, and you came back to that spot ten thousand years later. What do you think would have happened?"
"If I'm lucky, it might have become a jungle."
Like Kuiania, she added.
"If you're lucky. Most of them aren't like that. They sprout and become a single tree and firmly take root. But sometimes they become a forest. Like the names you mentioned earlier."
Ulrich said he had often seen such cases. Because he had lived a long time. Ordinary humans can't see the sight of a desert turning into a jungle. They turn into dirt before they can even form a forest.
"But it's not always good to see the old relationships that I compared to seeds flourish to the point where they can be called a forest. If they remember me, the relationship exerts a very strong power."
Roberta understood what he was trying to say.
"Like Count Meyer?"
"Yes, Willem is a good example."
Three hundred years ago, he had only adopted the children who had been captured as slaves along with Hilde Ditmarsken. Among these children was a boy named Hohenlohe.
He had no intention of having Hohenlohe's descendants serve him for generations. But Hohenlohe arbitrarily made his descendants serve Ulrich, and the current Count Meyer, Willem, was continuing his legacy.
"I'm not the only one with Meyer. I often witness the results of relationships that others can't see in their lifetime. And each relationship is not separate, but grows like a forest extending and meeting other forests. Just like Cormillius tempted Willem, they also influence each other."
Roberta understood what he was trying to say.
"I'm here, and I haven't changed. But the way I'm seen and what's expected of me is becoming something I can't accept."
What did she think of him when they first met? She thought he was a liar or a substitute. And after a little time, she felt that he was a strange person.
But Ulrich was Laurent, Oscar, and Selim. As she learned each of the names mentioned earlier, the way she looked at him naturally changed, and it couldn't help but change.
The meeting of forests and forests, the story of the influence between Cormillius and Willem, was about the change in the gaze and expectations towards him.
No matter what he called himself, people wouldn't care. Didn't the Pantheon offer him the imperial crown even though he refused?
"Sometimes, I feel that the past is heavy."
As he said, because the past had accumulated, he had become too great a person. The gap between how he saw himself and how people saw him was too wide to be narrowed.
Roberta watched the signet ring of Gallua melt into the flames and briefly prayed in her heart.