Chapter 191 - Damn Reincarnation

Spring of Light

Inside the cloak, Mer covered both ears. Outside, she could hear sounds as though the world were tearing apart and collapsing. Screams. Sobs. All things she did not want to hear.

Those sounds, and the emotions reaching her from Eugene, tormented her. So she squeezed her eyes shut. She knew she must not stop him. Even to Mer, his anger was justified.

'... He isn't using magic.'

If Eugene used magic, Mer would be able to intervene in some way.

If he rampaged with magic, she would gladly assist him. She would calculate trajectories so that his spells could pierce hearts and smash heads more thoroughly and mercilessly, without ever missing.

If, by any chance, his mana ran out along the way and he could no longer cast spells, Mer would gladly surrender even the mana that formed her familiar's body to him.

'... He's...being considerate of me.'

Knowing that made her suffer all the more. He knew she would intervene if he used magic, so he was not using it at all. And so Mer did nothing, curling up in the deep darkness within his cloak.

Hoping the storm outside would pass.

"... Ugh..."

Hemoria rose with a cracked groan. She could not quite understand...what on earth had happened.

She had been a little late joining the others. She had been too far from where the fighting broke out. While moving with her subordinate inquisitors, she had seen the light of the Gospel of Demon-Slaying. The Blood Cross Knights' Gospel of Demon-Slaying was a sacred formation designed for an all-out battle against a count-class demon. Had they really deployed even that to subdue Eugene Lionheart alone?

That question had crossed her mind. She had seen the wings of light consumed by flames. She had seen dark blue flames collide with the Sword of Judgment.

Her memories ended there. Had the storm unleashed by the collision swept her away? Piecing her memories together, Hemoria removed the mask covering her mouth.

"Urrgh...!"

The moment she opened her mouth, dark red blood poured out. She had not even taken a direct hit, only been caught in the aftermath, yet some of her organs had been damaged. Steadying her breathing, she looked around.

Not one of the inquisitors traveling with her remained standing. Some were nowhere to be seen at all. Deeply bewildered, Hemoria fastened her disheveled cloak again.

She advanced a little farther, then stopped, unable to take another step. She struggled to comprehend the sight before her. This had certainly been level ground...but the ground was gone. A deep pit lay there, as though it had existed for ages.

Well over a hundred holy knights and inquisitors lay strewn across its bottom. They were in a horrific state. Some had not even left intact corpses. Even those still barely breathing looked so badly injured that they could die at any moment.

Hemoria could not believe what she was seeing was real.

The Blood Cross Knights. An order whose name always came up whenever the continent's greatest knightly order was discussed. Its holy knights were drawn exclusively from the most skilled and devout knights in Yuras.

Maleficarum. Inquisitors who had loyally served the faith of Light for centuries. Long ago, they had confronted demons and evil mages; in this age, they hunted treacherous apostates and wicked heathens.

These were Yuras's two foremost military forces. Even without anyone of commander rank among them, had more than a hundred holy knights and inquisitors...failed to stop Eugene Lionheart alone, and been reduced to this?

"..."

Hemoria said nothing.

She simply closed her mouth and held even her breath. Her fingertips trembled. The gloves on her hands could not conceal it, so she curled her hands into fists to hide the shaking.

She did not want to avert her gaze. But she was afraid to look straight ahead. Little by little, her red eyes lowered.

She heard approaching footsteps.

Eugene Lionheart was climbing out of the pit. Holding the Holy Sword, with pale flames licking along it, he slowly ascended the steep slope.

His expression was...impassive. No trace of feeling remained about what he had done. Hemoria could do nothing. She merely stood in place and watched him approach.

The distance steadily narrowed. Her gaze kept dropping. She saw the deeply gouged pit. She saw the mangled holy knights. Several inquisitors' corpses lay nearby. The red cloaks that symbolized Maleficarum were drenched in blood.

"..."

Hemoria's lips parted slightly. This should never have happened. The Hero had killed believers? No. That was not what she considered the problem. She forced her head up to look at Eugene.

Those eyes.

She could not possibly think of him as the Hero. The Holy Sword in his hand was not emitting its distinctive sacred light. Only wavering flames enveloped the blade. Eugene Lionheart had no faith. Those eyes could not belong to the Hero, the Incarnation of Light.

She knew those eyes all too well. The eyes of an unbeliever who could never be brought to the right path. The eyes of a heathen who denied and hated the Light rather than believing in it. The eyes of a fallen soul destined for the very bottom of hell.

The moment she felt that, her body overcame its instincts. Conquering her fear, she stepped forward. Her lips parted, and red markings instantly appeared on both cheeks.

Hemoria's epithet as an inquisitor was the Guillotine. She had earned it four years ago, when she was just seventeen.

The Holy Empire had reigned as a religious state for ages. No one knew better than the people living there how easy and convenient religious fanatics were to manipulate.

That was why new religions constantly sprang up in the Holy Empire. Leeches that branched off from the faith of Light, altered its doctrines slightly, accommodated their followers, and whispered only pleasing words, seeking to siphon away the Light's believers little by little.

One such religion had existed four years ago. A high-circle mage had installed himself as its leader, spouting nonsense about his magic being divine miracles. Under him was a fairly substantial private organization of mages, mercenaries, and knights implicated in crimes. Hundreds of heathens had fallen under that new religion's spell.

It had vanished from the world in a single night. The young girl whom Atarax the Punisher took around with him had bitten off all their heads.

That was how she had earned the epithet Guillotine. The markings on her cheeks spread to just beneath her ears. Feeling the heat on both cheeks, Hemoria opened her mouth. Her eyes no longer wavered as she glared at Eugene. She took enormous pride in being an inquisitor who executed heathens and apostates.

Now, in her eyes, Eugene was no different from a devil. No, he was a devil himself. Such murderous intent and hatred could not possibly dwell in the Hero's eyes. The Hero could not possibly deny the Light.

Eugene paid Hemoria no mind. She was beneath his notice. If she blocked him, he would cut her down; if she fled, he would leave her alone.

... Something felt strange. Instincts honed through dozens, hundreds of brushes with death made him move.

Hemoria opened her mouth and bit into empty air. At that instant, Eugene moved on instinct. He did not move far. Since he could not tell what it was, he merely took a few steps to the side.

CRUNCH.

Some of the flames surrounding Eugene vanished. What had happened was clear. From that far away, Hemoria had opened her mouth and bitten them away.

'Her gaze.'

He saw through it. Did she bite away whatever she looked at? In that respect, it resembled Iris's Demonic Eyes of Darkness...but frankly, its power did not compare.

He had fought Iris in his previous life, and again just a few months ago. In truth, even without that experience, fighting while keeping track of where someone's gaze was directed would never have been difficult for him. Eugene drew his sideways-leaning body forward.

"—Ah."

A voice escaped Hemoria's mouth.

"S...top."

Her voice broke the word into separate sounds. These were not mere words. Like Dragon Speech, what she uttered carried magical power.

SCREEEECH!

The mana dispersed through the atmosphere vibrated and rushed at Eugene.

Hemoria's spoken commands did not create spell formulas as Dragon Speech did. But they forcibly moved mana, making it carry out simple orders.

The mana seized Eugene's body. Just as she had commanded, he stopped. Immediately, Hemoria opened her mouth wide.

Once again, he understood. That bizarre power of spoken commands. It was sudden, but lacked the power of a proper spell. If his own abilities were sufficiently strong, he could simply shake it off by force.

When Hemoria bit into empty air once more, Eugene's body, which should have remained still, accelerated. He forcibly shook off the mana holding him and charged at her. The sight horrified Hemoria. But she could not afford to remain horrified.

"Fall...down!"

Mana pressed down from above. Eugene strengthened his Ring Flame Formula to match it.

"T...wist!"

Mana tried to twist his entire body. A single step was enough to disperse that force.

"D...ie!"

Mana tightened around his throat. This time, he did not even need to shake it off. The Holy Sword he had already swung was flying toward Hemoria's body.

"Di..."

Hemoria cried out again, but the command remained unfinished. The Holy Sword severed both her legs. Before her body could fall, it moved again and cut off both her arms.

THUD!

With her arms and legs severed, Hemoria collapsed onto the ground. She screamed in pain that threatened to drive her mad. Even so, she glared at Eugene with venom-filled eyes.

The tattoos on her cheeks twitched, and her lips parted. None of her commands had worked. Her fists...had been cut off before she could swing them. Her legs had been cut off before she could move.

"Aaaah!"

Screaming, she bit into empty air.

It was a meaningless struggle. Eugene easily leaped over her fallen body. Then, after glancing at her with emotionless eyes, he kicked her in the stomach.

WHAM!

With all four limbs severed, Hemoria could not possibly resist the kick. Nor was it an ordinary kick. Mana penetrated her the instant it struck, crushing her internal organs.

Her body rolled down into the depths of the pit. Eugene gazed down for a while at the pit he had made himself. He could see a few people still breathing.

Should he bury the whole lot?

The thought briefly crossed his mind, but he did not act on it. Instead, he hoped some bastard down there would be lucky enough to survive. He hoped that survivor would spend the rest of their life doubting the faith they had always believed in. They could keep that doubt in their heart and rot along with it. Or they could go around telling others of their doubts about God's existence.

Eugene turned and moved forward.

The dense fog and barriers had been swept away by the storm of flames he had unleashed earlier. Thanks to that, he could clearly see the distant temple.

No one interfered before he reached it. Most of the holy knights and inquisitors who should have obstructed and stopped him lay in the pit. The rest, like the inquisitors Hemoria had brought, had been swept away by the aftermath of the Sword of Judgment's destruction.

The temple looked incredibly old. At least three hundred years. No, it must have stood here far longer than that. Eugene thought of the girls who had existed before Anise, the saint from four hundred years ago, and the devices that fed water...into...this spring. Devices that should never have existed.

What was happening here.

What a saint actually was.

Why Anise's chalice had resonated with the jawbone of the saint from four hundred years ago.

Eugene had a rough picture of the truth in his mind. He simply did not want to connect each piece, and he could not deduce the answers to the fundamental questions.

Why go this far?

... What about Kristina?

"... Sir Eugene."

He stopped.

He had passed along the path between the pillars and reached the center of the temple. Where an altar should have stood was a large spring emitting a soft glow.

The Spring of Light.

Kristina slept in its center, her eyes closed as though in prayer. The still spring water enveloped her body like a blanket. ... A golden spring. True to its name, the Spring of Light glittered beautifully.

That made it look all the more loathsome.

Submerged in the spring, Kristina was bleeding. Despite losing so much blood, her expression remained peaceful.

That face overlapped with the face of the girl who had wept, unable to bear the pain.

It overlapped with the smile that had felt like a mask ever since the Sun Plaza.

It overlapped with the unguarded smile that had emerged when their trivial conversations on the train unsettled her composure.

Kristina had said she had entered the spring several times since childhood.

When he had asked whether she had simply gone in normally, she had taken a few breaths before answering. She had donned a mask to hide her emotions.

How many times had she worn that mask until now?

"Sir Eugene."

Now he knew what Kristina had feared. She had been fixated on sainthood. She had spoken of the bond between saint and Hero, and had even said she would gladly give her life for the Hero.

That ritual was not normal. If someone mistook it for black magic, there would be no excuse to offer. So fixated on sainthood, Kristina would never have wanted Eugene, the Hero, to see her like this. She knew his sense of himself as the Hero was weak. She knew he had no faith whatsoever in the God of Light.

That would have made her all the more unwilling to show him. That was why she had tried not to bring him to Trechia. She had even prepared excuses for him.

In truth.

In truth, she could simply have told him not to come. If they had not met in the plaza, if they had not boarded the train together, Eugene would not have come to Trechia. He would simply have waited for Kristina to return, knowing nothing.

But Kristina had not done that. Even though she feared the truth about herself, about the saint, about the spring becoming known. Even though she did not want him to learn that she was a candidate for sainthood who had been educated that way since childhood and raised exactly as Cardinal Rogeris intended.

She had boarded the train with Eugene.

She had revealed her mask, her discomfort, and her fear.

["If you don't want to go, can't you just not go?"]

Eugene regretted asking her that then.

The question had been wrong. He should not have asked a question.

["The only thing I feel about this task is pressure."]

["Not once have I ever thought I disliked it."]

He had sensed those words were lies. Yet he had left her alone. He had thought that was how he could respect her resolve.

He had been wrong.

That kind of consideration did not suit Eugene. What he should have said to Kristina on the train that day was not a question.

Don't go.

He should simply have said that.

Was it already too late? No, it was not. Eugene continued toward the spring. Saint, Hero—none of that shit mattered to him.

Even if Kristina was not a saint, if she wanted a bond, he would forge one with her. Not that loathsome bond linking blood to blood, but a bond between people. Between comrades.

["If there is a Hero in this world, surely he too would never hesitate to do what is just and right."]

If Kristina wanted Eugene to be a Hero, then at least for now, he could gladly become one for her.

"... Sir Eugene."

Sergio Rogeris released his hands from their prayerful clasp with a long sigh.

"... Please come no closer. If you stop now, we can let this matter pass."

"..."

"Sir Eugene...you have committed far too many sins. Even if you are the Hero chosen by the Light, intruding upon a ritual presided over by God Himself is an act of profound impiety. You...have killed the believers you should be leading. You have defiled what should be a sacred ritual with feet stained by blood and dirt."

Sergio clenched his fists. Giovanni, who had been shedding tears of blood over his subordinates' deaths, also rose. Atarax turned toward Eugene with bloodshot eyes.

"... Turn back, even now. There is a confessional in the cathedral. Please...wait there. I will gladly hear your confession..."

"Divine punishment."

Eugene spoke.

He raised the Holy Sword out to his side.

"I..."

His murderous intent became flames that engulfed his eyes.

"...am going to kill every last one of you."

His heart beat so fast it felt ready to burst.

"You said the Hero is the Incarnation of Light."

Ominous, vicious flames coiled around the Holy Sword.

"Then my slaughtering you with this fucking sword is the will of the Light you worship so much."

He did not know whether slaughtering those lunatics was truly the Light's will.