Chapter 49
Johannes Holy-Bone Steel
“Since it contains his will, I believe it would be improper to arbitrarily give it another name.”
Such holy relics made by mixing the remains of saints existed before,
and in such cases, custom dictated putting the saint’s name before it.
However, since this was the first time such an alloy had been made, the Enersis mages gave it the new name Holy-Bone Steel.
“Then if we put it in the incandescent bulb like this─.”
“Then the flashlight’s glass will all melt.”
Of course, using this as the filament as-is?
Everything from the protective glass doubling as the lens on the front of the flashlight to its other components would melt away.
Regardless of electrical conductivity, they had to choose components with excellent mana conductivity and heat resistance,
and since the lens would be particularly troublesome, Akion participated directly.
“We use pure quartz only.”
Pure quartz did not expand much when heated, and it allowed most high-energy, short-wavelength light to pass through.
The Saint would be using high-output Holy-Bone Steel and had an enormous reserve of holy power, so this much should keep him from making after-sales service requests later.
It would be nice to additionally coat the inside of the lens with a material to protect it….
“Since making magnesium fluoride and a vacuum deposition machine isn’t easy….”
“Young Master, what other materials and equipment are those?”
“Something like that exists.”
Coating it with magnesium fluoride would send all the reflected light outward,
but the process involved handling dangerous materials such as sulfuric acid and magnesium hydroxide.
Since that would be dangerous without proper safety equipment, they excluded it.
A vacuum deposition machine (* PVD, a technology of vaporizing material at ultra-high heat in a vacuum and thinly coating a surface) was also too difficult to make with the technology available here, so they excluded it.
Akion decided to compromise by replacing it when necessary.
“Once we put this in….”
- Click.
Thus, after the workshop members had completed even the final finishing,
“Huuugh.”
“It’s finished…!”
only then did they finally lie down on the workshop floor with peace of mind.
“You all worked hard. Get a full week of rest─.”
- Snore
- Rooooon….
“……I told you to go back and sleep.”
The custom flashlight exclusively for the Saint was complete.
* * *
Akion’s reason for developing magi-engineering had been to make everyday life more comfortable, but….
“Saint, Saint!”
it was being weaponized with tears in his eyes by a certain mad Saintess.
Fortunately, the weapon would be held in a cleric’s hand,
and it was incapable of harming humans, so Akion could make it with peace of mind.
“Saint! Where are you~!!”
The Saintess had brought the custom flashlight Akion made, along with special gifts for the Saint and herself.
She was searching for the Saint inside the Papal See, her arms laden with gifts.
“The Saint is preparing to go to the orphanage.”
“Thanks for letting me know!”
After hearing the news, the Saintess hurried to his lodgings.
Unlike the luxurious lodgings where the Papal See’s high-ranking figures stayed, the Saint’s lodging, like the Saintess’s, was a tiny cottage.
“Saint, Sainnt!”
“Hm?”
In the cottage’s yard, the Saint was packing all sorts of things into a small bag.
“Haha, Saintess. I heard you went to Enersis. Something good must have happened.”
“Of course!!”
The Saintess was looking down at him.
“I’ve prepared a very special gift for you, Saint!”
“Since you’re this happy over something good happening to me, I suppose this old man really did choose one excellent disciple.”
He meant that literally.
The Saint had the appearance of a blond boy about ten years old.
Though he was a handspan shorter than the Saintess, the way he treated her was like that of a benevolent grandfather.
Of course, Akion had been rather shocked when he asked for their body measurements while making another gift for the Saint and Saintess. Anyway.
The Saint had watched over the Saintess since she was young.
With a warm smile, he watched the Saintess take something from her luggage.
“Ta-da!”
What emerged was a flashlight similar to the Saintess’s.
But its clean, carefully finished exterior showed that quite a lot of care had gone into it.
“Your birthday is coming soon, isn’t it, Saint? So this Saintess personally asked Saint Akion Enersis to make this flashlight for you.”
“Haha, goodness.”
Seeing a blond boy act like a grandfather would make those unaware of the circumstances feel as though their common sense had been twisted, but.
The flashlight he carefully accepted was a little thinner and longer to accommodate the Saint’s small hands, given his ten-year-old build.
“You designed it to be held like a sword.”
It was also clear that it had been designed to be easy to wield like a sword despite his small body.
A smile returned to Saint Ray’s lips.
“I suppose you remembered when I said last time that I wanted one.”
“Hehe.”
Born an orphan and grown into such a splendid Saintess, she had even traveled all the way from the capital to distant Enersis and back to repay that kindness.
Thinking she was truly an admirable Saintess, the Saint could not help but smile.
“I will treat it with care. Thank you.”
“Ah, that’s not all?”
As he tried to pack his things again, the Saintess stopped him once more.
Just as the Saint was about to express his confusion, wondering what else there could be,
- Click.
“Glasses?”
The Saintess took one pair of glasses from each of two small cases.
More precisely, they were glasses fitted with rectangular lenses….
“They’re black.”
The unusual thing was that the lenses were black with a green tinge.
That didn’t mean he couldn’t see through them.
“Saint Akion gave them as a gift for you and me. He called them sunglasses.”
“Sunglasses… glasses for looking at sunlight.”
They were, in fact, sunglasses.
Made by mixing iron oxide powder into the glass, they proudly showed off a subtle black tint.
“They say you can look straight at the sun while wearing these!”
“Haha, that would be nice if true.”
The Saint accepted the sunglasses along with their case.
He carefully put the sunglasses on, and….
“Oh. It really is true….”
“Right?”
He actually looked at the sun, surprised that its bright rays no longer dazzled him.
“Saint Akion said farmers’ eyesight gets worse because they work too long under sunlight. So he said he was considering distributing these to people who spend a lot of time outdoors.”
“I see….”
Around this period, many farmers entering old age actually had poor eyesight.
Borrowing Akion’s knowledge, it was because prolonged exposure to ultraviolet rays had damaged their retinas and lenses.
The clergy unaware of this merely blessed and comforted the blind old men, ending there.
“Akion Enersis….”
Though it was unfamiliar information to them, the Saint could not help admiring Akion’s broad knowledge.
- Tap, tap.
It might have been heretical, though.
In fact, quite a few people within the Inquisition called Akion Enersis a heretic.
He brought forth and demonstrated incomprehensible theories and technologies.
They even extended into magical theory, beyond what could be explained by the “science” he talked about.
“I should write a letter of thanks.”
“Hehehe, Saint Akion will be delighted too!”
If they called someone a heretic simply because they couldn’t understand him, then countless citizens of the Empire who failed to understand the words written in the Bible would be heretics too.
Should they round them all up and beat them?
The Saint knew perfectly well that was absolutely not the case.
Above all, Akion had shown that he was not trying to keep things for himself, but was striving to make everyone’s lives more prosperous.
“Saintess, could you spare me some time this evening? I will serve you soup for the first time in a while.”
“Oh! I’d love to! I’ll be waiting…!”
Above all, he had greatly helped the Saintess, whom the Saint cherished like a daughter.
Whatever the people of the Inquisition said, the Saint could afford to turn a blind eye.
*
After making dinner plans with the Saintess and leaving,
“Hmm.”
as he made his way toward the orphanage for his usual volunteer work, he groaned at his reflection in a mirror.
With blond hair and black sunglasses, he looked like something or other.
“……Hmm.”
Of course, that something or other was “kind of cool?”
Feeling somewhat pleased, the Saint quickened his pace.
He wanted to put them on the children at the orphanage too and let them experience it.
His decision to hurry was excellent.
- Fwoosh!
“Fire!!!”
Because the orphanage that had caught fire had not yet burned to the ground.
“What in the world.”
Apart from training knights and listening to reports from the Inquisition, the Saint spent his time outside the Papal See helping people.
Because it was deeply gratifying to see the lives he had saved laughing, getting angry, loving, and enjoying themselves.
“S-Saint.”
Before him, the orphanage was burning.
“Uuugh….”
“Director, your injuries are severe! Don’t move!”
The director, who seemed to have barely escaped, was trembling with half his body raw and blistered.
He was on the verge of death, but at least nearby healers and clergy had gathered and could keep him stable.
That director pointed at the orphanage with a trembling arm.
He looked terribly exhausted, but that was enough.
“There are still children who haven’t gotten out─.”
He had conveyed something important to the Saint.
- Bang!!
Saint Ray threw off his bag.
Giving it his all, as when he had faced the demon’s true form hundreds of years ago, he tore through the corridors, paying no heed to the embers fiercely burning through the orphanage.
“Waaaaah!!”
- Bang!!
- Whoosh!!
“Huh?! S-Saint?!”
“Run that way. Quickly!”
He broke through toward the place where a child’s cries could be heard, extinguishing the fire with blasts of air as he opened a path.
His overwhelming force made him disregard even fire.
It looked as though even the blaze swallowing the building was being pushed back, but….
- Prickle.
“……Tch.”
At the deepest part of the orphanage,
he sensed an uncanny energy from the direction of the chapel.
It was where they held mass with the statue of the Lord of Heaven… yet he could sense demonic energy in such a place.
Saint Ray suppressed his boiling rage and headed there.
- Bang!!
Thus, when he kicked open the burning door and entered,
“Ah, hallelujah. Hallelujah.”
a female-bodied demon engulfed in dark-red flames was joyfully searching for the Lord of Heaven behind the altar.
Wrapped in scorching heat, her blood-red flame hair streaming… the demon stared at the Saint lovingly.
“Saint Ray. Have you been well under the Lord of Heaven’s grace?”
“Hildegard.”
And she was apparently a high-ranking demon who had a long, ill-fated history with Ray.
“I thought I’d sent you straight back to your true home.”
“Ah, I did lose most of my original body. On that ecstatic day a thousand years ago, when you pierced my heart.”
But to the Saint, she was simply an annoying bitch.
She had chased him throughout her life after falling in love at first sight.
In the end, he remembered mincing her true body to extinction with his sword, so how had she come back to life?
- Swish.
Even so, this was Ray’s connection to deal with.
If she had come back, it was Ray’s duty to bring it to an end again….
Just as Ray reached for the flashlight hanging at his waist,
“Ah-ah, you mustn’t, Ray. Stop.”
“S-Saint…!”
“Jo─!!!”
John, the orphanage child held in the demon Hildegard’s hand.
“Ray. I haven’t touched him yet. But if you try to kill me here….”
“Eek, eeeeek….”
He was singed in places, but at least there was no indication that Hildegard had harmed the child.
The Saint realized instinctively.
“What do you want.”
That Hildegard wanted to make a deal with him.
Of course, she gave him an even more affectionate look, impressed by how quick he was to catch on.
“I want you.”
From the day she died a thousand years ago until now.
She voiced the wish she had not forgotten even once.
She wanted that noble and upright Saint to fall into her arms.
“But you won’t agree, will you? And you don’t want the child to die, either. So─.”
- Snap!
Of course, Hildegard knew his stubbornness, so she wanted to set him a trial.
A dimensional portal for demons—a Demon Gate—opened right beside her.
“If you enter this, you’ll find the plains of Hell. And waiting across them will be thirteen million demons.”
A trial that was effectively impossible to complete.
“If you can’t kill every single one in that sea-like demon army, your soul will be mine. Not that bitch’s—the Lord of Heaven’s—but mine.”
“Ha.”
“In exchange, the moment you step inside, I’ll extinguish all the fires in the building, including the one around this child.”
But she would let the child go.
She would put out all the fires in the orphanage.
It was a demand that he expend the Saint merely to extinguish the orphanage’s fire and save an orphan.
“S-Saint!! Don’t listen to her!! Get this demon first─ Aaaagh!”
“Shut up.”
Even the captured child knew it was an absurd deal.
In that regard, the Saint was,
- Crackle! Whoosh!
“Oh my?”
truly a brainless human.
For he immediately leaped into the gate.
“S-Saint—!!!”
“…….”
‘He’s really doing this?’
Hildegard was left dumbfounded.
Even she had to admit Saint Ray’s choice had been crazier than anything a demon would do.
- Grin.
“This is why I can’t help loving him….”
That was one reason Hildegard had fallen so hopelessly for him.
“Whoa?!”
“Begone.”
- Shimmer.
Smiling brightly, she let the child go and began extinguishing the fires.
Praying, of course, that her beloved husband would fail.
* * *
“Spectacular.”
And Saint Ray, who had leaped through the gate,
“Kyaaaagh!!”
“Saint! Saint! Saint!!!”
“Tear him to pieces and kill him!!!”
faced the demon army filling the plain spread out below the hill.
Just as Hildegard had said, there were really over ten million demons.
The Saint was dumbfounded.
- Keening!!
What else could he do?
It was the journey to Hell he had chosen.
“I hadn’t expected to use this so soon….”
He had no choice but to kill them all through sheer grit and brute force.
“Lord of Heaven, who art in heaven. Please grant me courage─.”
So, gripping the flashlight as the Saintess had done,
- Crack!
- Kiiiiiing!!
“Hm? Huh?”
Through the halo he had flared up like the Saintess’s, he felt holy power surge fiercely forth.
It felt as though the Lord of Heaven had shoved it in, saying, “Now!!”
- Crackle, crackle!!
- Rumble…!!
And he confirmed that all of that holy power was flowing into the custom flashlight made exclusively for him.
So much was being stored that the flashlight trembled violently.
The Saint, now caught up in it personally, couldn’t help but chuckle.
“……Saint Akion. Your magi-engineering truly is dangerous.”
He said so while uttering words contrary to his true feelings.
- Whoom!
Thus, the Saint raised the flashlight high into the sky.
- Rumble rumble rumble rumble!
- Boom boom boom!!
“Kyaaaaaaah!!!”
“Kill the Saint! Kill the Saint! Kill the Saint!!”
“I shall offer the Saint’s head to the Demon King─!!!”
The demon army advancing up the low hill from the plain regarded the sight as laughable and quickened its pace.
And then,
- Kwoooooo──!!
“Eh.”
“Gehk…?”
as the holy light from the flashlight brightly illuminated Hell’s blood-red sky,
every demon’s body froze.
“Heh heh, Hero. Are you watching from heaven?”
The great strike the hero had used a thousand years ago when splitting heaven and earth with a holy sword.
Imitating it, the Saint marveled that the thing in his hand was merely a magical tool.
“This should be comparable to your Excalibur.”
Imitating the technique of his beloved old friend, the Saint began his usual downward sword stroke.
“Hnnngh!”
- Rumble rumble rumble rumble!!
A pillar of holy light filled the sky as it came crashing down.
Even as the earth turned pure white, the Saint could clearly see what was happening thanks to his sunglasses.
He reveled in the sight of the terrified demons.
“Heeek.”
“Keryaaaaagh?!!”
“Run awaaaaay─!!!”
The demons caught in that pillar’s path thus,
───!!!
burst apart along with the enormous canal-like trench that appeared in the plains of Hell.