Chapter 20
The Goddess Church is the most influential religion in this world.
No, it would be more accurate to say it’s practically the only religion.
A new religion openly denying the Goddess Church…
And one with a history stretching back hundreds of years, no less?
“The Church has already secretly designated them as heretics.”
“Heretics!”
Heretic designation.
The greatest authority the Church holds, just like in other novels.
The power to wipe out and destroy everything related to heresy.
That’s how onerous the process is—and if the accusation turns out to be false, the Church faces a huge penalty.
In the past hundred years, the Demon King is the only one to have been designated a heretic.
“Heretics, huh…”
“Right. If they were just heathens, that’d be one thing, but they openly deny the Goddess Church.”
Though it’s practically the only religion, that doesn’t mean there are no other religions at all. Some remote village might have its own folk beliefs.
The Church usually leaves them alone, as long as they don’t deny the Goddess.
But this case is different.
“Well, they even carried out a large-scale terrorist attack this time…”
Right. Terrorism. This attack could be called terrorism.
“…This is going to get dangerous.”
They’d already carried out one attack. There was no guarantee they wouldn’t do it again.
“…Uncle. Can you send a few people to the academy?”
“Of course. This attack made it clear that they want to wipe out the academy.”
It made sense that they’d want to attack the academy quickly, since it was also known as ‘the future of the Empire.’
And if the academy were destroyed, it would cause enormous chaos.
Of course, their attempt wouldn’t succeed.
“Still, it’s a good thing you were there. I’ll let your running away from home slide, and I’ll send someone reliable, so make sure you protect the academy, too.”
“Don’t worry.”
Even without him saying that, if they attacked again, I’d just send them flying again.
Bring it on.
…
“‘Glory’ has fallen.”
A room with a round table and thirteen seats.
But now, only twelve seats remained at the table.
“‘Loyalty.’ Is that really true? You mean ‘Glory’ was defeated?”
“Yes.”
As ‘Loyalty’ spoke calmly, the room quickly grew noisy.
“That’s impossible! No matter how suited ‘Glory’ was to mass slaughter, his own combat strength wasn’t that weak! There couldn’t possibly be anyone at the academy capable of facing him!”
“Right. If anything, even a mob of nobodies would be no match for his followers!”
“Was there no one who observed ‘Glory’s’ battle?”
“…”
But no one answered that question.
“You fools! Even if we don’t get along, how could no one have paid attention to a plan that would mark the beginning of our great undertaking!”
“Ugh…”
“And what about you, ‘Sacrifice’! Aren’t you just the same!”
“I was busy awakening the ‘spirit of sacrifice’ in the members of our church! I’m not as idle as you, ‘Mercy’!”
“Have you said your piece?!”
“Enough. Why are you old geezers so eager to tear each other apart?”
‘Loyalty’ put an end to their argument.
Having stopped the quarrel before it could escalate, ‘Loyalty’ spoke again.
“‘Glory’s’ defeat is regrettable, but we have to come up with a new plan. Even if the plan to attack the academy has failed, that doesn’t mean ‘true peace’ won’t come.”
“‘Loyalty’ is right. First, we need to find out how ‘Glory’ was defeated and what the academy is capable of.”
“‘Silence.’ The fact that you’ve spoken means you have some idea, doesn’t it?”
“Yes.”
The man called ‘Silence’ cleared his throat, then began explaining in a quiet voice.
“‘Glory’ is indeed the weakest among us, but that doesn’t mean he’s completely outmatched. Especially given his ability, he wouldn’t have lost just because he was outnumbered.
That leaves two possibilities: he let his guard down, or his opponent was extremely powerful.
Of course, the latter is extremely unlikely. It would take a Swordmaster or a Grand Mage to defeat ‘Glory,’ and there are no more than nine of them in total.”
There are five Swordmasters, two Grand Mages, and two Grand Swordmasters.
As ‘Silence’ had said, there were no more than nine transcendent beings.
“So it would make sense to assume ‘Glory’ let his guard down, but…”
‘Silence’ paused for a moment, then steeled himself and spoke.
“I don’t think that was the case.”
“‘Silence.’ Why do you think so?”
“Because he’s ‘Glory.’ ‘Glory’ values his honor. Above all, ‘defeat’ is the least glorious thing he can imagine. He’s the kind of man who would resort to underhanded tactics if it meant victory. It’s hard to believe someone like ‘Glory’ would lose simply because he let his guard down.”
“That’s true…”
Defeat wasn’t glorious. To him, victory alone was glorious, even if it meant fighting dishonorably.
A perfectly reasonable deduction: with convictions like that, ‘Glory’ probably wouldn’t have lost simply because he let his guard down.
As the others voiced their agreement with ‘Silence’s’ deduction, a woman who had been quiet the whole time spoke up.
“Then, ‘Silence,’ are you saying that someone at least as powerful as a Swordmaster happened to be in the capital, near the academy, on the very day we planned to attack it?”
“That’s right, ‘Purity.’”
“What an astonishing coincidence. Truly.”
“Who knows? To me, it seems like it could be either coincidence or fate.”
“What do you mean, ‘Loyalty’?”
“It’s simple.”
‘Loyalty’ replied to ‘Purity’s’ question as if it were nothing.
“Three of the five Swordmasters are in countries other than the Empire. Of the remaining two, one is the commander of the Imperial Knights, so he couldn’t have arrived quickly. There’s no way the Whitewolf Grand Duke or the Hero, both Grand Swordmasters, would have intervened, and the two Grand Mages were far from the capital.
So there’s only one person who could have been near the academy and had the power to kill ‘Glory.’
The youngest Swordmaster: Flia Jegen Whitewolf.
“But isn’t she in the North too, where the Whitewolf family is based?”
“Normally, yes. But an interesting rumor has been going around lately.”
“You mean the rumor that the youngest daughter of the Whitewolf family ran away from home?”
“Exactly, ‘Silence.’”
“But, ‘Loyalty,’ what do we do now?”
Without asking what he meant, ‘Loyalty’ understood what ‘Silence’ was getting at.
With Flia as a wildcard, how could they destroy the academy?
That had to be what he was asking.
“We won’t give up on the academy. In fact, now that we know there’s a Swordmaster there, we have even more reason to destroy it. Including Flia Jegen Whitewolf.”
“Do you have a good idea, ‘Loyalty’?”
At ‘Purity’s’ question, ‘Loyalty’ smiled wickedly and said,
“Of course.”
…
Several days passed after the Baekcheon Church’s attack.
-Ah… I don’t want to go to school…
-There was an attack recently. Isn’t the academy going to close?
Huh. I guess not wanting to go to school is the same in every world.
Even at an academy full of elites, this is how it is…
Well, that’s only natural, so it’s not really a problem.
The only thing is…
“Ah… I don’t want to go to school…”
“I know… After what happened, shouldn’t they close the academy…”
The problem was that the people beside me were exactly the same.
“…You two, cut it out already. Do you know how many days you’ve been saying that?”
“But, you know… Because of that incident, we couldn’t get any proper rest over the weekend. And now we have to come to class without even a day off…”
“Exactly.”
“Sigh…”
As you can see, the two of them had been forced to give up their weekend to volunteer, rescuing people and clearing debris, and were protesting their return to class with every fiber of their being.
“Just hang in there. The weekend will be here soon.”
“You can say that because you have an unusual hobby, El—you enjoy studying.”
“A-an unusual hobby!”
I knew it was weird to like studying, but still!
The knowledge of this world is fascinating!
“El. That’s what an unusual hobby is.”
“Even you, Ian…”
As I felt a little down because even Ian, whom I trusted, had betrayed me, someone walked past me.
“…Guards?”
“Come to think of it, I heard they were increasing the number of guards because of what happened last time.”
“There do seem to be more guards, don’t they?”
When I looked around, I saw that the number of guards had clearly increased.
Uncle must have sent some people over, like he said.
But…
“That’s strange…”
“What’s strange, El?”
“Hmm… It’s nothing.”
Those faces look kind of familiar. Is it just my imagination?
…
Unfortunately, I hadn’t been mistaken.
“Starting today, I’ll be your instructor. My name is Luke. I look forward to working with you!”
-Luke?! Could that be the commander of the Imperial Knights?!
-The Swordmaster known as the Sword of the Empire!
“El! Look at that! A Swordmaster came here to teach us!”
“Yeah… I see…”
You crazy old man! The reliable person you meant was yourself?!