Chapter 136
Grace was quite pleased with the situation as it stood.
Though it differed in many ways from the disguised date she had originally expected, this was plenty of fun in its own way.
How many people in this world could say they had enjoyed a wild race while riding a Super Oak Barrel?
Thus, she could say without a trace of regret:
“Thank you. This is more than enough.”
“It’s not over yet, so what do you mean, ‘more than enough’?”
“?”
The problem was that while Grace was satisfied, Gritz was not.
No amusement ride in operation would stop just because its passenger shouted that they’d had enough and wanted to get off.
Once Gritz confirmed that Grace had finished her snacks, he immediately set off toward the next destination.
“W-wait a minute! Where are we going?”
“Never mind that and just enjoy the view!”
The oak barrel moved.
Running, rolling, bizarrely and freely.
From roof to roof, from alley to new alley, leaping over walls and climbing along them.
Grace stared dumbfounded at the scenery changing by the second, then was startled to see Gritz begin climbing a mountain beyond the city.
And it wasn’t just any mountain.
Part of the enormous mountain range dividing this land from the outside world.
The oak barrel began striding up a steep slope so rugged that even the mountain wardens rarely set foot there, as though it were ignoring the laws of physics.
The seat, which had been level with the ground, tilted to an angle just short of vertical, and Grace’s entire body bounced and shook in that position. Even someone as fearless as Grace couldn’t help being frightened.
“I-is this really okay?!”
“If it isn’t, what are you going to do about it?”
“?”
Ignoring Grace, who had been putting question marks over her head more often than usual today, the oak barrel continued its climb.
Higher, higher, higher still.
Until the green filling her view grew increasingly sparse, then gave way to the gray of rock and yellow of sand.
After the oak barrel came to a stop with a clunk,
Gritz’s voice roused Grace from her daze.
“Come outside.”
His voice was blunt, with not a hint of kindness, yet tinged with a subtle playfulness.
Feeling an emotion she herself could not tell was anger or relief, Grace climbed out of the oak barrel as he directed.
“Wow.”
Her eyes sparkled at the sight before her.
Delicate ears of grain that seemed to be waiting for harvest, flowers blooming here and there, and a long river glittering silver in the sunlight.
Buildings huddled together, with tiny dots moving among them—presumably people.
Bellaria.
Her homeland, the land where she had lived all her life, filled her field of vision like a painted picture.
“Wow, so this is what it looks like from above.”
Grace repeatedly nodded, humming in admiration.
Indeed, she thought, it was the finest possible ending to a sightseeing tour.
“Seen everything?”
“Yes. It’s a sight I’ll never forget, even if I live a lifetime!”
“Then we should go to the next place.”
“The next place?”
Grace tilted her head.
She simply couldn’t understand where he intended to take her now, when it seemed she had already seen everything there was to see.
But instead of answering, Gritz rolled the oak barrel ahead, and this time Grace followed behind him on her own two feet.
Riding in the oak barrel would probably have been more comfortable, but Grace deliberately did not ask him to carry her.
She thought there had to be a reason he had not told her to get in first.
And she was right.
A towering peak.
The view spread out from the far end opposite the place where she had first gotten off was overwhelming in an entirely different way from what she had just seen.
“……”
This time, Grace did not let out an exclamation of admiration.
She merely stared at the scenery before her with a blank expression.
It was vast.
And unfamiliar.
It could not have been otherwise.
Bellaria was the land where she had been born and lived.
Whether she walked through it on the ground or looked down from a high place, it was fundamentally familiar.
But the scene unfolding before her eyes now was a realm she had only heard about, and never once experienced herself.
“The outside….”
There was a magnificent castle that made the Carnelian estate look laughably small.
There was a tower near the distant horizon, tall enough to touch the clouds.
Enormous roads and carriages. Vast plains. A forest blanketed in strange mist.
Places she had heard of only in stories—or had never even heard of in stories.
“Ah.”
Grace felt as though she wanted to give her former self a good smack.
It was a reprimand aimed at the fool who had used the phrase “a sight I’ll never forget” far too hastily.
Thanks to that, she could not think of a suitable word to express what she was feeling now.
“This is only a part of it. There are far more places out of sight than within sight, and they are much larger. I told you several times, didn’t I? This continent is damnably huge.”
Gritz’s voice reached Grace’s ear as she stood there frozen.
“If the plan goes smoothly, you will become the object of faith in your homeland instead of the Guardian Deity. At times, it may feel like shackles. When that happens, remember this view.”
Whatever else one might call the Guardian Deity, it was ultimately just a neighborhood boss who had ruled like a king over an isolated land.
Before this distant vista, the weight of the name “god” was neither particularly heavy nor special.
So there was no need for her to feel burdened.
Think of it as an ornament you could take off whenever you needed to.
At those indifferent yet considerate words, Grace forced a smile.
After all, wouldn’t the mood turn strange if tears welled in her eyes when something good had happened?
“…Yes, I’ll never forget. Neither this view nor your words.”
Grace fervently hoped that the slight tremor in her voice could, please, be overlooked as a little emotional indulgence.
***
Throughout the festival, the residents of Bellaria felt slightly conflicted.
It was not something that could be called bad by any means.
In an age when entertainment was scarce, a festival where people could eat and drink to their hearts’ content was bound to be welcome.
Even more so when it was a festival lavishly supported by the ruling family of the land, which had opened its storehouses.
Yet even as they mingled with others, laughing and chatting, there remained a subtle unease—or perhaps a question—in one corner of their hearts.
‘Is it true that the Guardian Deity is going to change?’
‘Does that really mean we no longer need to choose and offer up a new priestess?’
‘It would be nice if it worked out, but I wonder if we’ll only get our hopes up for nothing and end up disappointed.’
The people responded enthusiastically to Grace’s actions, but their enthusiasm had a strongly calculating side.
It was not that they believed the rumor from the depths of their hearts; they believed because, from their perspective, believing would ease their guilt and might bring benefits if it turned out to be true.
It could not be helped.
Until only recently, the girl they had mingled with in the same city was suddenly said to be becoming a god. It was not easy to believe that deep down.
Thus, on the final day of the festival,
the eyes of those gathered in the wheat field, away from the city center where they had spent hours laughing and talking, held a subtle distrust—or perhaps skepticism.
Though she noticed those gazes, Grace strode boldly into the wheat field.
All around her, a crowd that numbered thousands at a glance, and perhaps even tens of thousands, watched with shining eyes, but Grace paid them no mind.
It was only an event in a tiny rural village, after all. There was no need to be so nervous, burdened, or take it so seriously.
Rustle.
A tender ear of grain was caught between Grace’s fingertips.
It was the sort of ear that still needed more time and labor before it could offer the joy of harvest.
Holding it, Grace quietly closed her eyes and prayed.
It was not a prayer to a god.
Ordinary priests and priestesses offered prayers to the god they believed in and were granted divine power in return, but Grace was in the position of trying to seize the very seat of godhood.
Her prayer was not directed at someone somewhere else; it was used solely to shape her own heart and set it right in a particular form.
May the grains in this wheat field grow fuller.
May the people eat their fill and sleep with contented hearts.
A prayer that had taken the right form began to spread around Grace’s body in the form of divine power.
However, its effect was not particularly strong.
The grains grew fuller and larger, but at most, only one among countless ears.
This too was an astonishing miracle, but it lacked the impact to move the countless people gathered here all at once.
A corner of the wheat field.
That was until subtle magical power flowed from the oak barrel lying there like a mere background prop and gently enveloped the entire field.
That magical power possessed no special ability or unusual quality.
Its only function was to glow brilliantly in a hue shifting between gray and silver, according to Grace’s image.
A method of manipulating magical power useless for offense, defense, or healing—something an expert would click their tongue at as wasteful.
Yet for the purpose of showing the people something at this very moment, it was sufficient.
“Oh?”
“Oooh!”
Exclamations of wonder rose here and there.
Thanks to Gritz’s subtle manipulation of magical power, to the people it looked as though a silver aura blooming from Grace’s body had enveloped the entire vast wheat field.
It was a vision of unparalleled holiness, one that inspired the expectation that something special was about to happen.
And the people’s expectations gathered around Grace, becoming a wish in their own right.
Appearance and reality were reversed.
Or perhaps appearance became reality.
The gathered wishes caused the ears of grain around Grace to grow rapidly and become fuller, and the astonishment and wonder of those who witnessed the change with their own eyes called forth even more new wishes.
This was impossible in many different senses.
Ordinary humans did not inherently possess the ability to convert wishes themselves into power.
It was an ability innate only to those born as divine beings in the distant heavens.
If one reached transcendence, it was possible to gather divine power directly while ignoring the divine races as intermediaries, but cases of becoming transcendent on the basis of divine power were exceedingly rare.
In a way, that was only natural.
Divine power was, by its very nature, a force humans could not use unless beings called “gods” served as intermediaries.
In other words, if a god judged the situation unfavorable, it could cut off the supply of divine power at will.
Gods bestowed divine power upon their followers as a means of increasing the number of believers, but if a follower seemed likely to grow enough to threaten them, they restrained them by limiting the supply of divine power or forcing them into an unreasonable contract.
For a being not of the divine races to become a “god” was, in a sense, an act of creating more competition.
Grace was naturally not transcendent, and using the Guardian Deity as an intermediary while proclaiming a title like “successor to the Guardian Deity” was normally an absurd act.
What god would permit a priestess to become known as the being who would replace it?
That’s right.
It could not possibly happen unless the god had gone so far off the rails that it was no longer controlling wishes according to its own will, but instead was being tossed around by the wishes themselves, to the point that even its sense of self fluctuated.
[──────]
Far from the wheat field.
Of all Bellaria’s countless people, only Gritz and Grace sensed the silent scream that rang out from the temple, where no one’s footsteps reached.
Sensing the faith in it gradually flowing elsewhere, the Guardian Deity tried, in anger, to cut off the supply of power to Grace.
But that task was not easy.
The people were already spellbound by the “miracle” Grace had displayed before their eyes.
The more Bellaria’s residents recognized Grace as the Guardian Deity, the harder it became for the Guardian Deity to resist their wishes.
Though it could somehow turn a stiff faucet enough to weaken the stream, shutting it off entirely was impossible.
Thus, the Guardian Deity had two choices left.
Either meekly let its faith be stolen and decline into an old has-been put out to pasture, or kill Grace before all its faith transferred to her.
Gritz’s eyes settled into calm.
By tonight at the latest, everything would be decided.
Gritz’s eyes settled into calm.