Chapter 396: Hellfire (8)

“Aimier... who is that?”

In the pitch-black underground space, only the faint glow of the Illumination spell Muen had rubbed out flickered. There was no wind; the air’s lack of circulation made it feel stifling.

But in that instant, for no reason, Muen felt a chill surge up from the soles of his feet, slide along his spine and the nape of his neck, and shoot straight into his head, hissing like a venomous snake atop his skull.

“What... do you mean by that?”

Muen stared straight at Rabbit and asked, enunciating each word:

“Aimier is the honorific name of the Life Goddess, isn’t it?”

“I only know that the one we worship is the Goddess.”

Rabbit shook her head.

“But we truly don’t know of any honorific name ‘Aimier’ for the Goddess.”

“You don’t... know?”

Muen couldn’t help but frown.

How could they not know?

Generally speaking, for a deity, there wouldn’t be such a “human-like” honorific as Aimier. But for the deity with the largest number of believers on the entire continent, it’s said that before the Church was founded, the Life Goddess descended a terrestrial vessel called “Aimier,” walking the world in the form of a maiden to spread the gospel—thus came the Church’s birth and rise.

Therefore the name Aimier, for the world’s believers—and even nonbelievers—is absolutely bound to that Life Goddess.

Just as people, upon hearing the word “sun,” instinctively look up at that blazing orb—those two are already inseparable.

Aimier is the Life Goddess.

Yet now, the Life Goddess in Rabbit’s mouth... seemed not to be Aimier?

“Could it be... the time doesn’t match?”

The Lost Land is a nation that was exiled. If, before the Goddess descended to the mortal world under the name Aimier to spread the gospel, they were forced to be isolated from the world, then not knowing this honorific would be normal—

No. Wrong.

That situation is absolutely impossible.

Because, as Freya said earlier, the one who exiled this nation... was the Church of Life’s first Saintess!

Before Kanteville was exiled, the Goddess had already descended to the mortal world under the identity of Aimier. Therefore, at that time, the name Aimier had already spread!

As the anchor to which faith-power is offered, so long as one is a believer of the Goddess, it would be impossible not to know this exalted name!

But Rabbit said—she didn’t know.

Moreover, she used “we,” not “I.”

“Speaking of which, why the first Saintess exiled this nation is itself a mystery. I originally thought the people of this nation abused the Goddess’s power and incurred the Church’s opposition—but now, it seems not so.”

That jumble of tangled yarn surfaced again in Muen’s mind. It was as if several naughty kittens had mauled it; the threads lay dense and unknowable, with no loose end to seize.

No—perhaps earlier, Muen had faintly sensed where the end lay. But because the idea was too fantastical, too inconceivable, each time before pulling it out, Muen chose to give up of his own accord.

Now, that loose end lay right before his eyes. Because of Rabbit’s offhand question, it surfaced—like a hibernating viper, staring at him; its hissing grew clearer and bitingly cold.

“We have always thought the people of this Lost Land are believers of the Goddess—and that they were invaded by an evil god, and we came to save them.

“But that seems only to be our unilateral assumption—and an illusion pieced together from fragments. From beginning to end, the Goddess statues in this world have no face...”

They—the natives of this nation—perhaps did not worship the Goddess at all. Or rather... not the Life Goddess.

But if the one they worshiped wasn’t the Goddess Aimier, then what is the truth of the story that happened here?

“Similar... yet opposite.”

Out of nowhere, Muen suddenly recalled the sentence he had seen in the mirror, something Freya had said.

He murmured in a low voice, as if bewitched:

“Opposite, opposite, opposite... Right. If you flip everything around, it all falls into place.”

“For example... the rot.”

On the first night they entered this nation, the most unforgettable, soul-chilling sight—apart from those twisted fleshy monsters—was the rot that spread across the world, as if it would devour all living things.

Anyone seeing that horrific scene would instinctively link it to the source of chaos and disorder in this world.

But thinking carefully now, that rot... was only rot.

And so-called rot... is also a part of life. It represents life’s final withering and end.

That is far more normal than the world full of bizarre flesh, plants that grow beef and mutton, and rivers flowing with milk.

“So, the one invading this nation may actually be the true Goddess Aimier; rot is a portion of that Life Goddess’s authority.”

“That moon... I wondered why it felt familiar. It should come from the remnants of the Silent Moon. The old loli said the Silent Moon’s remnants were divided up by all sides; the Church couldn’t possibly have kept its hand out.”

“In that diary, the ‘evil god’ invasion was in the past few decades, while the ‘round thing’ only appeared in the last entry. Judging by the dates, everything lines up.”

“What the Church has been busy with all these years was not breaking the so-called Wall, but infiltrating this Lost Land with the Goddess’s power. Yet this process was slow, giving the natives here—or something here—time to react.”

Images of those twisted monsters flashed in Muen’s eyes. The diary had first thought those monsters came from the Outer Gods’ pollution—but in fact, no. They merely appeared together with that pollution.

They were more like some kind of countermeasure of this nation.

“Until the Church obtained a medium—the Silent Moon’s remnants. Through the Silent Moon’s remnants, the infiltration of the Goddess’s power accelerated drastically.”

“But perhaps because of the earlier war of gods, or for some other reason, a certain expected shift [N O V E L I G H T] occurred in the situation. So the Church could wait no longer—that’s why this extremely risky Trial of the Holy Rite happened.”

Muen’s mind raced. Once his thinking opened up and he found that hidden thread, everything felt perfectly natural.

Of course, most of it was his conjecture; he had no substantial evidence.

Yet Muen still felt this conjecture was not far from the truth.

“In that case, thinking along these lines, the nature of the ‘Goddess’ truly worshiped by the natives here should likewise be perfectly obvious.”

Able to be exiled by the first Saintess.

Able to make the Church so wary.

Able to make the Goddess Aimier personally descend Her power to invade.

It certainly wasn’t because this nation truly hid countless stores of gold and treasure—nor because it was so wondrous that even the Goddess Aimier wished to admire and learn from it.

There is only one possibility.

“For something so simple to occur to me only now... Just like with Ailag at the time, from the beginning, I’ve been deceived by a kind of fixed mindset...”

Muen laughed at himself.

He had assumed that a nation lacking no food and full of contentment and happiness must be the Goddess’s blessing.

He had assumed that the nauseating rot and the world’s collapse must be the evil god’s invasion.

But the truth—was precisely the opposite.

“The one invading here is the Goddess Aimier. And the one who has all along bestowed power here, shaping this into a Golden Nation without hunger... unsurprisingly, is an Evil God.”

Muen lifted his head. First his gaze swept across Rabbit’s soot-black little face; then he turned, as if to pierce the heavy layers of earth and encompass the entire nation in his sight.

Only then did he understand what those high walls signified.

“So this place, actually, is no Golden Nation at all.”

In his memory, those fruits were so plump; that milk looked so sweet; the people here could grow freely, without care.

But isn’t that only natural?

If you want cattle and sheep to grow fat and fine, of course you feed them the best fodder.

“This is... the Evil God’s pasture.”

...

...

“They’ve come.”

In the Supreme Seat, the Pope—who seemed to have been dozing—raised his eyes, stood to battle stations, and looked toward the end of the firmament.

The sun, moon, and stars running along their tracks suddenly halted, as if some malfunction had occurred, and trembled together, faintly.

And at the edge of the sky, ink-black color silently bled outward.

Flowers bloomed.

Blossoms of every hue, bewitching to the extreme, took root and grew in the void, swaying in the wind.

Then came swelling fruit, luxuriant trees, inexhaustible food. In an instant, half the firmament brimmed with vigorous life. Yet beneath the skins of these plants, vein-like patterns faintly pulsed—like the blood vessels of living humans.

Pale jade feet stepped forth from the blackness; behind them, a gown deep as night, studded with countless dim stars. From the hem upward, there was a sensuously alluring figure—a bosom—full of maternity.

Next... a face that was void, without features.

In Her arms She cradled a swaddled bundle. The bundle was pitch black; at this moment, two chubby little hands poked out, clutching a small shard of the moon and gnawing at it happily.

But that was only a small piece—or rather, the last piece.

Thus, when the last piece vanished into the swaddling cloth as well, a shrill wail rang out, nearly rending souls apart—yet it conveyed a message anyone could understand:

—Hungry.

The head dipped slightly, as if gazing kindly at the infant in the swaddling cloth. But behind Her, a vast shadow writhed ceaselessly, as if to cover the entire sky.

Evil God · Mother of Abundance.

“Couldn’t steal it, so now you’re going to snatch it by force? Heh. You want to take back what’s yours? No—that is not yours. Besides, what you want... is far more, isn’t it?”

The Pope showed a cold smile.

“Unfortunately, old relics like me—who’ve lived too long—are all terribly stingy. So... you can’t have it.”

With a sweep of his wide sleeves, the boundless holy radiance behind him burst open.

Amid solemn thunder, the Gate of the Sanctuary opened wide!

Beyond the gate, awe-inspiring knights stood ready; iron whales trumpeted high as they rose into the sky; the white-robed elders were each so ancient they looked newly dug from graves—yet each one of them could make the world quake!

At the forefront of all stood the current Saintess in white skirt-armor—and at her side... Pink Bear, shivering with a face full of dumbstruck confusion.

Ignoring the disgrace beside her, the Saintess held a sacred scroll and read aloud:

“This is the Oracle from the Goddess. She says... drive out all that is unclean!”

“For the Goddess!”

“Long live the Goddess!”

Fanatic shouts drowned the infant’s wailing. The Pope gripped his scepter and, in the sweeping light and fire that scoured the world, murmured the latter half of the line:

“For... humanity.”