The East and the West.
As I stared at the sacred light soaring up simultaneously from both directions which was something that shouldn’t be possible…. I felt a faint sense of unease.
“Stan…”
– I’m busy, so get to the point!
Was he already in combat?
Stan’s voice sounded urgent, so I hurried to the point.
“Are you sure the one you’re fighting right now is Kult?”
– Who else could possibly wield that kind of power if not that monster?!
Creek!
Even through the communication device, I could hear the taut bowstring being drawn.
Then came the thump! of the arrow being loosed.
“Before he revealed his power, how could you be so sure?”
– I saw his eyes. The moment I did, I felt reverence I’d never known before. You just know when you see them. That’s not something anyone else could imitate.
“Yeah, that makes sense.”
I forcibly strung together the information Stan had given me in my head.
Kult’s eyes were special.
Just by looking at someone, those eyes could instill awe in them.
They made every word he spoke feel believable and left little room for doubt.
But that was only part of their power.
Those eyes were gifts from god. They were the very source of Kult’s inexhaustible divine power.
That’s why Kult kept them hidden.
Because anyone could recognize him the moment they saw those eyes.
Even someone who had never seen him before would know instantly.
And for that reason…
“You confirmed his appearance, right? Were both of the eyes you saw the prophet’s?”
– Huh…?
Even if those eyes were on someone else, it would still be impossible not to suspect they belonged to the prophet.
Stan had said he saw the eyes. But had he actually confirmed the face as well?
Probably not. He must’ve been so overwhelmed by the eyes that he couldn’t distinguish the rest of the face.
Even if the person looked completely different, just those eyes alone would make one believe it was the prophet.
At that moment, I finally understood Kult’s true intention.
He was wary of the Oracle. But the Oracle wasn’t his only enemy.
There were also the imperial knights, the imperial family, and Lobelia’s group.
In fact, they were the real threat.
– I said, just get to the point!
“That lunatic might’ve gouged out his own eyes.”
This was both bait and a trap meant to tie us down.
***
Kult Hereticus quietly brushed his fingers over his eyelids.
Right after locking Johan in the room, Kult had immediately gouged out his own eyes and implanted them into his stand-ins.
Since the recipients could use divine power, the transplant wasn’t too difficult.
Of course, the prophet’s eyes couldn’t be handled by anyone other than Kult.
Those who received the forced transplant wouldn’t survive even a single day.
But…
“It’s more than enough time.”
Before the day ended, Kult planned to bring God down to this land.
Though he had lost his eyes, he was not plunged into darkness.
Even if they were transplanted into others, those eyes were still the prophet’s mark.
Even when separated from his body, they remained his.
“I’ve found you…”
Which meant they were bait.
They were sacrificial pawns meant to both conceal Kult’s true location and stall his enemies long enough for his plan to unfold.
The Oracle, the greatest unknown factor.
Lobelia, the most direct threat.
To keep them both occupied, such a risky gamble had been necessary.
The Oracle didn’t see people in her visions. She saw events.
So Kult deceived her by showing the prophet’s power in a future that wasn’t his own.
After all, whether it was Kult or the Oracle, seeing the future always came at a cost.
And even if it didn’t—
“I’ve finally found you, Oracle.”
Now that Kult’s eyes had locked onto the Oracle, he could also see her future.
And in a battle of foresight, Kult would never lose.
“Huh… Huhuhuhuhuhu!”
Laughing, Kult wiped the blood dripping from his empty eye sockets.
There was no one left to stand in his way. All that remained was the final step.
“Helena…”
Tonight, Kult would kill Helena and extract the sacred relic from her heart.
The ritual was ready.
“I’m sorry.”
All that was left was for his eyes to return to him.
There was no need to rush.
Once either of the baits facing the Oracle or Lobelia died, he could retrieve them.
The greater the confusion, the harder it would be to find him.
The baits had already fulfilled their roles the moment they confronted their respective targets.
Now all that remained was to burn their lives away and fulfill their mission.
“Big brother.”
“Yes, Helena.”
“Do you regret it?”
“You can’t really know if you’ll regret something until after it’s done.”
Even while flinching from the pain of his gouged-out eyes, Kult smiled.
“But sometimes, you have to act….even when knowing you’ll regret it later.”
“Is that when you believe it’s the right thing to do?”
“Yes.”
“What is right?”
“There’s no real answer to that.”
His hands, stained with blood.
They had taken countless innocent lives.
“But there’s one thing I do know for sure. The dead… don’t get second chances.”
A human life was so fragile. It could be ended by a single word, a single accusation.
That’s how delicate it is.
“Helena, you once asked me if I only saw the ugly side of the world, and if there were never any happy times in my past.”
“Yes…”
“Do you remember what I said back then?”
“You said that because you know the beauty of the world, its ugliness stands out even more…”
“That’s right.”
At that moment, a single tear slipped from Kult’s empty eye sockets.
The clear droplet shone as it slid down his blood-covered face, but by the time it reached his cheek, it had mixed with the blood and lost its original clarity.
“Caron once dreamed of becoming a farmer. His wish was to eat his fill from crops he grew himself.”
Caron was the first to die after his neck snapped just because someone didn’t like seeing a poor boy on the street.
“Asher wanted to become a scholar. We used to collect discarded newspapers, books, and paper from the roadside just for him.”
But Asher was killed after his heart was pierced through.
“The world is unfair.”
They were never given a chance. In a single moment, they all became cold, lifeless corpses.
Just because someone found them an eyesore for walking down the street.
Then why did he think the world needed to change?
Was it simply to avenge them? To mourn their sadness?
No. If that had been the reason, Kult would never have become this twisted.
So why had Kult ended up adopting the very same methods and lifestyle as those he once despised?
Why had he acted selfishly, taking lives just like the ones who killed Caron, Asher, and their friends?
“There is no afterlife.”
Because that’s how this world was built.
The dead don’t get second chances.
The gains of the selfish far outweigh the rewards of the righteous.
And in this world—
“If there’s no heaven or hell, is there any reason for people to live righteously?”
—there is no final destination for such things.
In such a world, what meaning did goodness hold?
Who would reward those who spent their lives living virtuously, only to be killed for no reason?
Who would mourn them?
“In a world without even the faintest hope, does anything have meaning?”
Kult wanted to change it.
A world where no one feels lacking.
A world without greed.
A world where true equality exists between people, and no one needs to feel inferior.
A world where good and evil are clearly defined, and each receives its rightful end.
“That’s why I’ll create a paradise where the distinction between good and evil isn’t even necessary.”
An Eden like that.
“And in that world, I’ll be the only sinner.”
And so, Kult was prepared to fall all the way to the bottom.
***
East and West.
As the light rose simultaneously in both the east and west, I quickly began to think.
Kult probably wasn’t in either direction.
From the start, we were mistaken.
“…Kult’s condition for victory isn’t winning the fight.”
It was summoning a god using the sacred relic. It wasn’t eliminating his enemies but merely avoiding their interference.
He deliberately prepared a conspicuous scapegoat and hid himself beneath the shadow cast by the radiance he revealed.
With this much chaos, it’s more than enough for one person to slip away unnoticed.
“Yuna!”
“Mhmm!”
“Head to the Andvaranaut TMerchant Guild right now and tell Cattleya!”
We need manpower.
To find someone in the midst of this confusion, we need overwhelming numbers.
That’s why we need Cattleya’s help. As the head of Andvaranaut, there was no one better when it came to mercenary operations.
“Have her mobilize everyone. Mercenaries, traders, all of them! We need to find Kult’s whereabouts!”
Time was short.
Judging by how he created this distraction, there’s a high chance the ritual has already begun.
“8:24 PM! That’s when Kult left the mansion! If he’s trying to move discreetly, he couldn’t have gone fast, so use that to narrow the search radius!”
“Johan, what about you?”
“Forget about me! There’s no time to worry about that now! I’ve got something I need to take care of, so just go!”
“Got it!”
Yuna took off across the rooftops and started heading toward the Andvaranaut Merchant Guild.
Think. Even when people try to act differently, their habits always show.
He pretended to be impulsive, but he was still calculating.
We have to trace that calculation.
No….before that, there’s something else I need to deal with first.
“Is the artificial heart ready yet?”
I murmured into the empty air.
It might have made me look crazy, but I wasn’t talking to myself.
– Just finished. I sent it through Emily, so join up with her and retrieve it.
At that moment, a voice mixed with mechanical tones echoed in my inner ear.
It was the nanomachine device of Deus, the head of Ex Machina and the one known as the Scriptwriter.
“You really do deliver what you promise!”
– All I did was put some flesh on the framework. It wasn’t that difficult. Frankly, it feels humiliating, as if I’ve stolen the work of a subordinate researcher.
“Incredible, as always.”
The fact that humiliation came before any feeling of guilt said it all.
“In any case, you saved me. I appreciate your cooperation.”
– You should.
I had contacted Deus through Emily and secured his help.
The price? Nothing major.
Just that I would become a member of Ex Machina.
I probably couldn’t even claim to be in the gray zone anymore. At this point, I had become an outright criminal, but there was no other choice.
Deus was the only one who could complete the artificial heart in such a short time.
“Oh, by the way…any idea where that bastard Kult is?”
– No. And more than that, I don’t even want to get involved with him. Things don’t just break when he’s around.
Useless…
For someone who monitored the entire empire with nanomachines, there were a lot of blind spots.
– If exposed to his divine power, even the backup data gets wiped out.
“Wow. Divine power with universal application, huh?”
– Yeah, that annoying bastard… I’ve lost count of how many times he’s rendered my devices unusable.
Deus’s grumbling had begun.
Since the voice came directly into my ear, there wasn’t much I could do about it.
Honestly, I didn’t want to hear it. Honestly, we weren’t even that close, were we?
But still…
“Wait, how exactly does divine power wipe out backup data?”
That bit of information was actually quite useful.
I knew that divine power represented “wholeness,” but I had never imagined it could affect machines too.
Of course, that wasn’t the important part.
What mattered was that Deus’s machines malfunctioned when exposed to Kult’s divine power.
That alone practically made him a divine power detector.
If I let him keep talking like this, I could probably pinpoint his general location once the voice cut out.
– Do you even know what backup data means?
Luckily, the scriptwriter took the bait.
People like him always got especially chatty when the topic piqued their interest.
Keep provoking his curiosity.
“Oh, starting with that? I know it well. Come to think of it, didn’t you say you weren’t curious about how I knew the future?”
– Hmm… no, I’m starting to get curious. I’d like to get a sense of what kind of knowledge you possess. Let’s hear it.
“Before that, you need to answer my question first.”
– Fair enough. Among researchers, that’s considered a proper exchange.
Now, I just needed to keep up the conversation while walking around and observing the area.
I didn’t know how much ground I could cover with my stamina, but it had to be better than standing still.
– Look straight ahead, newbie.
“Huh?”
Bang!
At that moment, something dropped in front of my feet, blocking my path.
It was the head of a huge hammer.
Wielding it was a knight clad in full plate armor.
“You may not pass. Turn back if you value your life.”
He was a Paladin of Eden.
Fortunately, it didn’t seem like he had figured out who I was.
He was just playing the role of a gatekeeper.
He didn’t seem particularly skilled, but I couldn’t afford to waste time dealing with someone like him.
“I’m sorry! I’ll turn back right away! Please don’t attack me!”
“Get lost, now.”
I immediately turned around.
– Weren’t you looking for Kult?
“He’s probably not in that direction.”
Even at a glance, the guy was low-level. The fact that someone like him was blatantly blocking the path made it likely this was just a diversion.
By now, the entire empire had probably learned that Kult had done something, and judging by the quality of the gatekeeper, it was obvious.
In a place like this, even a single Imperial Knight could punch a hole through their defenses like a highway.
These were sacrificial pawns meant to delay that one Imperial Knight.
– What a waste of manpower.
“Well, they’re doing what they can to prepare for an all-out war.”
A thousand could die.
Ten thousand could die.
It didn’t matter as long as Kult survived and accomplished his goal.
No matter how many followers of Eden died in the process, it meant nothing.
They were fanatics who truly believed their prophet would change the world.
– Now, let’s get back to what we were talking about. Divine power, you see, is…
Still, it was impressive how consistent this guy remained, even with things this urgent.
He was the type who’d plant an apple tree the day before the world ended.
– Are you listening?
“Yes…”
Thanks to him, some of the anxiety had faded.
I wasn’t sure if I should be grateful for that, though.
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