Chapter 47
Goldie had splendidly subdued the dark mages.
Along with the estate's people who came after hearing the commotion, clergy from Lidashid Diocese who had heard the news also arrived and dragged the dark mages away, and….
“Ahem.”
Goldie, now a hero, was…
- Pinch pinch!
“Eeeeeek!”
“What are you so proud of, you little rascal?”
being chewed out by Akion.
Because Goldie herself had nearly gotten hurt.
“Uwaaah, I'm sorry.”
“What would you have done if you'd been hurt or killed because of your mistake, huh?”
“Ah, Young Master. S-so it was okay that Goldie secretly used the waterbed?”
Even as he scolded her mercilessly… Akion kept emphasizing that Goldie hadn't been hurt.
This quick-witted golden retriever realized that Akion was angry because Goldie had nearly gotten hurt.
“H-hehe. Goodness, Young Master. If you like Goldie that much… even if it's Goldie, this is awkward─.”
- Pinchiiiiii~!!!
“Waaah!! Don't pinch Goldie's cheeks─!!”
She could have refrained from bragging about it,
but loyal Goldie had honestly told him everything, only fanning Akion's anger.
And no wonder, considering what Akion had heard the moment he woke up that morning was outrageous.
“You awakened by using the waterbed, then drove off dark mages with it? Good job, but you did both things I told you not to do, huh?”
“Eeeek! B-but driving off the dark mages was for your safety, Young Master─ Eeeeeek!!”
The reason a mage had been assigned as Young Master Enersis's personal attendant.
So he wouldn't die.
This was a world where, just when you thought you'd forgotten about it, rumors would reach you that an assassin had killed a noble.
“I told you, you don't have to do things like that.”
“Whiiiine……”
But Akion was free from that concern.
If Akion analyzed the rumors circulating throughout the Empire….
The beloved son of Count Delford, who stood on the verge of the tenth tier.
The son-in-law of Duke Volkov, who had recently become a Master, and the fiancé of Aicirel, who was also a Master.
The benefactor and workshop master of Clad Stillburn, the hammer-wielding Master of House Stillburn.
On top of that, the Emperor had even proclaimed two separate imperial territories for his sake….
“The Magi Tower Master is there too.”
The Empire's pillar and the only great dragon residing in the human realm,
the genius adored by Lidashid's Magi Tower Master.
“But… Goldie also has to serve as the Young Master's bodyguard.”
In other words, to the people of the Empire, Akion was someone not to be touched.
That was why, even though several factions had suffered direct or indirect losses because of Akion, they kept quiet rather than attacking him through legitimate means.
The dark mages who believed in attacking first were exceptions, of course. In any case.
“Akion. Don't scold her too harshly!”
“Waaah! Magi Tower Master!!”
Since Akion was in his unusually strict mode today, comforting Goldie fell to the Magi Tower Master.
Goldie was sobbing her eyes out, snugly nestled against the enormous dragon-mom bosom.
“Still, didn't you subdue two dark mages? Subduing them is normally more difficult than killing them.”
“How would the Magi Tower Master know that… Ah.”
For reference, the Magi Tower Master had once single-handedly wiped out an entire ducal domain that had rebelled.
Akion had been a little curious, so he looked up the forces of that duchy at the time….
“You would get hurt if you knew.”
“Yes, ma'am.”
It had been a prestigious knightly house, and it had two Masters.
There had been some five thousand Expert-level knights capable of wielding aura.
He thought the damned Lord of Heaven had gone full romantasy again,
but regardless, the Magi Tower Master before Akion was the one who had single-handedly wiped out such a ducal domain.
Of course, the current Magi Tower Master was the one who patted heads, gently stroking Goldie to comfort her.
“Hehe, in that regard, I hold Goldie's abilities in high regard. Though she did use the somewhat underhanded means of a waterbed….”
“Even you, Magi Tower Master…!! Waaah!”
“It's all right. Still, having splendidly subdued two fourth-tier dark mages means you've become a proper fifth-tier mage, Goldie.”
That didn't stop her from delivering razor-sharp facts, though.
The facts knocked Goldie out cold.
As expected, the Magi Tower Master was the master of fact-based violence.
Akion nodded in satisfaction, then brought up the main point.
“So, why did they come in?”
“That is….”
*
- Smack! Smack!
“Gaaah!”
“Gaaahhhh!!!”
The Holy Church's Lidashid Diocese.
Since the diocese also served as a hub overseeing the surrounding regions, it was a large diocese where clergy such as inquisitors also resided.
Naturally, the dark mages who had been hit by Awakened Goldie's Golden Thunder had been brought here.
“How did the interrogation go?”
The bishop in charge of Lidashid Diocese was watching the inside of the torture chamber with a grave expression.
“They revealed their objective, but….”
“The location of the Black Star Cult's branch?”
“It proved impossible due to the prohibition curse.”
He let out a deep sigh at one inquisitor's report.
The reason dark-mage organizations were so cruel was that they even used dark magic to bind their own foot soldiers, the dark mages.
Specifically, they placed prohibition curses on dangerous information about the cult.
If they tried to divulge the cult's information, they died, and even if a Holy Church cleric tried to remove the curse, they died.
It was such a vicious curse that these people were a headache for the Holy Church every time.
Should they feel sorry for them?
“They truly are the sort who chose to be forsaken by the Lord of Heaven….”
The initiation process of the largest dark-mage group, the Black Star Cult, involved sacrificing an orphan.
For reference, it had to be done voluntarily.
That included personally bringing an orphan and offering them up.
What if they gave up?
In its great mercy, the Black Star Cult erased the memories of the orphan and the applicant, then sent them back alive.
They even informed applicants of that before the test.
“Extract the information even if you have to break all four limbs. One of them may be killed.”
“Yes, sir!”
In other words, those dark mages had voluntarily abandoned their humanity.
From the bishop's perspective, they were a loathsome lot he did not even want to keep alive.
To make matters worse, they had not opened their mouths despite this being the fifth day of torture.
And so, just as the two were about to obtain information even if they had to kill them….
“No. There's no need for that.”
“Who─! Gasp?!”
Someone suddenly spoke to them.
Someone was in the interrogation room, where access was restricted?! The startled bishop and inquisitor turned around, and─.
“S-Saintess!!”
“May the Lord of Heaven's grace be with you. Bishop, have you been well?”
The Holy Church's superstar, recently hailed as a new punisher following the Saint.
“I'm sorry for visiting so suddenly.”
“What brings you here….”
“Why… I came running the moment I heard that my benefactor had nearly been attacked.”
The Saintess had rushed here the moment she heard the news.
*
“Ahh, Saint Akion!!”
But the distance between Enersis and the capital was enormous.
Unless the Saintess had run here using the Master-level physical stamina Aicirel had demonstrated, there was no way she could have come from the capital to here in just a few days….
“Saintess. I hope you've been well.”
“Yes, yes! Thanks to the blessings Saint Akion bestowed upon us, we're all living days overflowing with good fortune!”
The Saintess had somehow done it.
How?
But Akion gave up trying to think about it.
- Bzzzt!!
“Come to think of it, this must be the first time I've shown this to you, Saint Akion! This is the Holy Light Sword!”
“Wow……”
What more could he expect from the creator of the Holy Light Sword?
He was the one who would suffer if he dug into it to analyze it and made things troublesome.
“So the Lord of Heaven's grace has become visible….”
“Mm! No, that's not it. Our researchers analyzed it too, and it would be more accurate to say that holy power has taken physical form.”
Of course, Akion's scientific knowledge thrashed around as if having a seizure, and he wanted to foam at the mouth and scream, “Don't spout bullshit!!!” right then and there.
- Snip!
“Like this! The cut surface gets seared by holy power.”
As if making light visible with that holy power weren't enough,
it also provided physical force capable of cutting,
and even applied heat powerful enough to burn it as though with fire?
By what mechanism?
Through heat? A chemical reaction?
Or had it roasted it with something like the microwaves in a microwave oven?
“Truly astonishing. To think the incandescent bulb I made could be used like this…. The Lord of Heaven must surely have bestowed his grace upon all of you.”
“Ahahaha! Saint Akion, you're too much! You don't have to pretend to be humble, you know?”
Akion had nearly had a seizure.
He wanted to say, ‘This isn't science and engineering!!!’
“If the pioneer of magi-engineering is that humble, people everywhere will grow jealous, you know?”
“It's all right. I only care that everyone's lives become more prosperous.”
“Ahh, what a truly benevolent person….”
Thus he emptied his mind and answered like an automated response machine,
but the Saintess had already experienced all the enriching engineering technologies Akion had spread.
“So, Saintess. May we get to the main point now?”
“Oh, my, what am I doing?”
Fearing the conversation would never end otherwise, Akion hurriedly brought up the main point.
“May I ask why you visited Enersis?”
He wondered what urgent matter had brought the Saintess running all the way here.
Of course, he could think of a few likely possibilities.
“I'm tracking dark mages.”
There were already widespread rumors throughout the Empire that the Saintess had been traveling around with holy knights and, under the Saint's teachings, annihilating countless evils.
Akion had expected this much, since the rumors were already widespread throughout the Empire.
“Then I suppose I should bring the maid who performed so well at the scene. And….”
Akion had also roughly realized by now that this was not the end of it.
“Did you perhaps come to commission something?”
“Was it that obvious? Yes, that's right.”
- Clack.
Because she had placed the flashlight she used as a Holy Light Sword… on the table.
She had even pushed it toward Akion.
“Saint Akion. Could you make me a flashlight with a stronger output than this one?”
“What for?”
“The Saint seemed interested in my flashlight.”
The Saint.
The three powers leading this world's Holy Church were the Pope, the Saint, and the Saintess before Akion.
He had heard that the Saintess was a newcomer by their standards, being raised like a newbie, but….
“The Lord of Heaven's Punishment?”
Another name for the Saint was “the Lord of Heaven's Punishment.”
He was in charge of the Holy Church's military might and the commander of the Holy Knights.
“Yes. He said he wanted a Holy Light Sword like mine.”
“……”
For reference, the Saint, who was also the supreme commander of the Inquisition,
had asked for one(?) Akion-special Holy Light Sword.
“No, but why…?”
“I mean, he can manifest holy power without a flashlight, but….”
Recalling the situation, the Saintess laughed incredulously as she relayed the Saint's words.
“When he saw my Holy Light Sword, he said it was pretty cool.”
“……”
In truth, when Akion saw the Holy Light Sword the Saintess had shown him earlier, he had also thought it was fucking awesome.
“I mean, he does have a point.”
“Mm, is it really that cool…?”
“It really is incredibly cool….”
No argument there.
As a man, he had to agree.