Chapter 33
The second test took place a few days later.
-The second test is the ‘Path of Faith.’ Even when you can’t see an inch ahead, you must maintain unwavering judgment. We must determine whether you have the necessary qualifications through this illusion dungeon’s trial!
It had been several dozen minutes since he entered the dungeon.
Arti felt as if the Prayer Priest’s declaration had been made ages ago. That was how mentally exhausting this test was. Everything in this damn dungeon had been an illusion from the very start.
“…Phew.”
Arti trudged along a rural path that had appeared out of nowhere. He held the Sacred Sword in one hand and a wooden holy symbol of the Sun God in the other.
“Unnecessarily realistic.”
His beloved hometown.
The vineyards of southern Gallia came into view.
As he reached the entrance to the village, someone approached.
-Honey—!
-Woof, woof!
Aria, her silver hair swaying, came running toward him in plain clothes. Beside her, a large dog of the sort commonly kept in the countryside approached, wagging its tail.
From far away, Aria called out, her brows drawn together prettily.
“Honey! Why are you so late? I was worried!”
“….”
“Hm? What’s wrong? Are you ignoring me? Boksil! Go teach him a lesson!”
“….”
Woof, woof!
The dog came bounding toward him with its tongue hanging out, looking delighted, as if eager to leap into its owner’s arms.
-Hey! Boksil! I didn’t mean greet him—!
Arti wore an unimpressed expression.
Another illusion of Aria.
It was starting to get on his nerves, since it kept doing this so persistently.
“….”
For a brief moment, he felt a pang of longing, but Lydia’s training and the divine power flowing from the wooden holy symbol helped him resist the illusion.
‘The Saintess and I have never been married. I’ve never owned a dog back home. So this is all just a dream.’
The dog approaching him….
Was nothing more than an illusion meant to beguile him.
Woof, woof!
He swung the Sacred Sword at the oncoming dog.
A blue crack appeared from that point. The warm scenery of his hometown vanished as if it had never been there. What appeared before his eyes was a ghastly set of fangs and a blood-red tongue.
Slash—!
[Grrr—!]
When he came to his senses, the shadow wolf lay split in two before Arti. It was an undead monster that used illusions to make its enemies lower their guard.
‘If I’d focused on the Saintess in that illusion, I would’ve been in danger.’
“…Phew.”
Arti’s head throbbed.
Every time he broke an illusion, his sight and hearing were assailed by extreme fatigue. So he clasped the wooden holy symbol and prayed.
“O Blessing of the Sun, grant me the strength to move forward….”
Blue energy flowed from the wooden holy symbol. The mana circulating between the Sacred Sword and his body transformed into divine power, answering Arti’s prayer.
Flash—!
His mind cleared.
His exhaustion faded, too.
It wasn’t as powerful as the accelerated healing of the Sacred Sword Danan, but the gentle ripple unique to divine spells roused his mind.
Arti murmured, refreshed.
“…This is nice.”
If there had been a priest nearby, they would have been astonished to see a commoner who hadn’t even undergone baptism casually casting divine spells one after another.
But he no longer cared about such trivial things.
-Think as hard as you can.
“….”
‘The teachings of the Sun God are now in my heart. This spell is proof of that. I’ll keep reflecting and move forward with Him.’
Thinking of the sun in his heart,
he never took his eyes off reality.
All he could do was move forward.
‘Toward a path where I can stand beside the Saintess….’
Please,
let this be the right path.
*
Outside the academy, at the entrance to the illusion dungeon,
a great crowd had gathered on the verdant plain.
They had come as witnesses to the second test.
Lydia was waiting there, too.
“….”
Lydia sat in the ‘reserved section’ with the academy’s high-ranking noble cadets. It was much farther from the dungeon entrance than the area where the crowd had gathered.
The venue had been arranged by Raul, who was overseeing the test.
-We have set aside a place for the noble cadets. Please, make yourselves comfortable here….
In truth, this ‘consideration’ was aimed at one person alone: Lydia.
‘Raul’s getting desperate. Did he use the high-ranking nobles as an excuse to keep me at a distance, so I couldn’t interfere in the test directly?’
Mave, Morgan, and Lydia’s other friends were sitting beside her as ‘relevant parties,’ too.
The freshmen from the Department of Swordsmanship were chatting nearby.
-Somehow, I feel like that Arti guy’s going to pull it off again.
-He may be a commoner, but he’s pretty strong.
-If he keeps leading the fight against the dark monsters as a Hero, he might even become a full-fledged knight.
-Hmm, that guy wouldn’t be a bad choice. He’s practically Her Highness’s right-hand man.
“….”
Someone like Dominic, for instance…
They were people who were fairly well-disposed toward Arti.
It seemed that Lydia had dug up quite a bit after inviting Aria to the tea party.
‘Beatrice said Raul’s direct subordinates among the holy knights had been frequenting back-alley information brokers. They probably didn’t get any solid information, just rumors about the princess’s faction.’
Even if they were distancing themselves now,
it probably wouldn’t change the test’s outcome much.
It was one of Raul’s desperate attempts, in his own way.
Lydia sensed it.
The time was drawing near.
Someone was bound to take the bait.
“….”
Mave looked around.
“I don’t see Aria.”
“Hmm, I looked for her, too, but couldn’t find her.”
“Do you think she might be sick? I feel like we haven’t seen her in almost ten days….”
“We should be able to see her soon.”
“Pardon…?”
At that,
Mave tilted her head.
Morgan glanced at Lydia for a moment, then lowered her head again. There were too many high-ranking noble cadets around, and she felt uneasy.
“….”
And what bothered her was….
-What do you think, Sir Lucian?
-An illusion dungeon is a place where clear judgment matters more than one’s own strength.
“….”
Morgan hated that hulking man.
It was stupid of him to go on about things everyone knew as if he alone understood them. And she hated how he was unnecessarily packed with lumpy muscles, too.
If delicate(?) Lydia sat beside him,
those muscles’ stink would contaminate her.
Ugh.
‘…That makes me sick.’
She didn’t mind the other nobodies,
but that golden hulk was unbearable.
‘Lydia engaged to a guy like that…?’
Just imagining it made her head spin.
For the first time in a while, Morgan’s stomach churned as if she were about to throw up.
“….”
‘They even seated us way too close to that golden hulk. What if Lydia hears another weird rumor and starts worrying about it…. I hate this spot.’
Whenever that hulk and Lydia were near each other, strange rumors always started going around.
-Her Highness the Princess and Sir Lucian, sitting side by side….
-As expected, those two are still….
“!”
See?
There they go again.
Still seated in her chair, Morgan edged toward Lydia with a creak, creak, creak, so she wouldn’t hear that nonsense. And so she wouldn’t be contaminated by the smell of sweat.
“…Hmph.”
As she moved closer,
she heard Lydia murmur.
“…It’s almost time.”
“?!”
Morgan jumped in surprise.
Time?
For what…?
But Lydia paid no attention and raised her hand slightly.
Then she snapped her fingers.
Snap—!
The sound rang out clearly.
Somehow, it carried a powerful resonance.
“?”
A few people nearby glanced over.
But when they saw Lydia calmly fold her arms again, no one said anything. In the end, they turned their attention back to the dungeon entrance and resumed their conversations.
-I think being a Hero means….
-Just like the Saintess, it’s a religious….
Only Morgan, who had been focused on Lydia from the beginning,
noticed her gaze turn to the opposite end of the plain where the dungeon stood,
toward the watchtower beside the academy’s main gate.
A light glimmered there for a moment.
Flash—!
“…?”
Morgan furrowed her brow.
‘What was that?’
But even after several dozen minutes passed,
she still couldn’t figure out what had happened.
And then the sound of the dungeon door opening again drove the thought from her mind.
Rrrrumble—!
The heavy stone door opened,
revealing a boy holding a blue sword and a purple orb.
Arti handed it to the Prayer Priest.
Clack!
“….”
“….”
The two met each other’s eyes with solemn expressions.
“….”
“….”
Neither of them spoke.
But both had learned to communicate through faith.
And so a silence heavier than ten spoken words passed between them.
The Prayer Priest slowly nodded.
“You have passed the second test as well. You’ve cleared two of the three trials, so… you have already proven the basic qualifications to become a Hero.”
“!”
“!”
“!”
The boy had overcome the harshest ordeal.
A Hero had been born.
He was a strong boy from Gallia.
He wasn’t a puppet born of the Theocracy’s mercy.
Just as the crowd was about to raise their voices in unison….
“Wait—! I object!”
Cardinal Albert and Inquisitor Raul approached, their expressions stiff.
Prayer Priest Adrian looked at them.
“You have no right to reject this result. In this world, only the Sun God can overturn the result of this test.”
“….”
The sun and sacred altar that appeared behind the Prayer Priest shone quietly. There was no sudden thunderbolt, nor did the earth turn upside down.
The people could understand the Sun God’s will.
Albert managed to nod with difficulty. He was breaking out in a cold sweat.
“Yes, of course we aren’t trying to overturn the result.”
“Then what is your objection?”
“I believe the Hero candidate should continue on to the final test. Of course, he has already proven himself… but isn’t the rising and setting of the sun a law of nature, regardless of whether a task has been completed?”
“….”
“We must see the sun rise and set through to the end. Only then can the necessity of our faith be upheld.”
All rites must be carried out to the end.
Even if it is the Hero’s test.
The Cardinal’s argument was full of holes,
but Adrian didn’t refute the only truly sound point.
“…The final test is the ‘Trial of Oaths.’ Beneath the Sun Altar, the candidate swears his resolve to the Sun God.”
“Yes, of course I know.”
A test that consisted only of prayer.
That was why it was the easiest.
As long as he hadn’t sold his soul to a demon,
and could stand proudly before the Sun, he would pass.
Adrian looked at Albert with hollow eyes.
“….”
“….”
The one who spoke up beside him was the Inquisitor. His expression was complicated, somehow, but not as desperate as Albert’s.
“…Even if it’s a test he’s bound to pass, I agree that it should continue to the end. We must hear his oath beneath the banners of the One God Church and the Theocracy.”
“….”
Adrian fell silent.
He knew.
They weren’t doing this out of pure faith.
But as a man of faith,
it was an argument he found very difficult to refute.
‘Every rite must be carried out to the end…. Even if its end is already in sight, it must be seen through to the very end.’
And so he nodded.
“…Very well.”
Adrian looked at Arti. He had been wearing a calm expression the whole time.
“The Hero candidate must now take the final test as well. Even if it is a meaningless test.”
“Yes, I understand. I will stand proudly before the Sun God until the very end.”
The people were impressed.
-Did you see how that commoner didn’t even change his expression?
-He had passing within his grasp right before his eyes….
-He’s mature for his age. He seems like a clergyman.
He didn’t care a whit for the Theocracy’s authority.
Inquisitor Raul watched the scene and sighed.
‘Oh dear, I hope the Saintess doesn’t see this and get the wrong idea. Whatever happens to the Hero, everything must be done beneath the Theocracy’s banner…. This was my mistake.’
As everyone was lost in their own thoughts,
Cardinal Albert smiled quietly. A sly glint flashed between his teeth for just a moment.
‘Now it’s done…. I can finally breathe.’
At that moment.
That slyness vanished at the sound of a girl’s voice from far away.
“In that case.”
“?”
“I will oversee the final test.”
“?!”
Everyone looked in that direction.
There stood Aria, the silver-haired Saintess, panting for breath. Behind her was a carriage led by a maid.
Aria held a small letter in one hand.
Clutching it,
she spoke with determination.
“I am the Saintess, the representative of the Sun God. So, not by the authority of the Theocracy, but directly on behalf of the Sun God… I will dare to oversee the final test.”
The Saintess’s declaration, shouted before so many people.
Prayer Priest Adrian answered solemnly.
“…That is true. You alone, in this vast world, can directly represent Him. You’ve finally realized it yourself.”
Everyone who had gathered was astonished.
That Prayer Priest,
who wouldn’t renounce his faith even with a blade at his throat,
had acknowledged it.
-Not the Theocracy… but the Saintess’s right…?
-Was the Saintess really someone with that kind of authority?
-Was she not just a puppet of the One God Church?
Raul’s expression twisted slightly. His pupils trembled faintly.
“…Saintess?”
And.
Albert’s expression was on the verge of shattering.
Lydia had been watching all of it.
“…Heh.”
Now it was certain.