The royal castle of the Kingdom of Anselus with its long history.
The largest room within it.
A floor with geometric patterns made by fitting colorful stones. Ivory stone pillars rise up, and a chandelier made of glass hangs from the arched ceiling.
It’s a space normally unused and only used to display the king’s dignity, but today it’s filled with people.
The relationship between the Kingdom of Anselus and the Holy Spirit Religion headquarters is similar to that of medieval European kingdoms and the Vatican.
Since the entire region east of the Skard Rocky Desert believes in the Holy Spirit Religion, it’s not much different if you substitute it with Europe.
There are several differences, such as the existence of magic and magicians, or swordsmen who can draw sword energy from their swords, but there’s one distinctive difference.
Here, gods directly influence.
Warriors and priests acknowledged by gods appear, and miracles descend from the sky.
Because it’s such a world, the power of the Holy Spirit Religion was so strong that even a king of a country couldn’t act recklessly against it.
So when they denounced the Kingdom of Anselus saying they were harboring an evil god, they had no choice but to immediately bring that evil god.
Moreover, if a god said so, it’s no different from the rules of the world speaking directly.
No living being can live outside the rules of the world.
If they do?
Then they’re no longer living beings.
And that non-living being appeared, led by soldiers.
On the surface, it looks simply like a short girl with purple hair. Judging by appearance, she’s closer to a child than an adult, but her large chest makes you doubt if she’s really a young child.
Other than that, she looks like nothing more than a child with exceptionally white skin.
No dignity, no ominousness.
Just a small girl.
That’s what people seeing her for the first time thought.
There are many people here who have never seen her before. No, rather, more than 80% are seeing her for the first time.
Most people here are nobles or of priestly origin.
The exceptions are servants working between these people, but even they have a status close to minor nobility.
But it wasn’t just people from the Kingdom of Anselus here.
They were people from other kingdoms surrounding the Kingdom of Anselus.
There’s a reason why nobles and royalty from other kingdoms, and so many of them, are here.
Because just yesterday was the funeral of Tis, a legendary great man.
In other words, they are foreigners who attended for condolences because it was a national event.
Originally, they were planning to spend time at the reception held all night after the funeral ended, sleep one night, and return.
But now a major incident involving the Holy Spirit Religion suddenly breaks out here?
They all attended without exception.
In addition, all the lords who came up from the provinces for the funeral were also present.
It was a gathering with so many people that you could say everyone who could gather was brought together.
And the outer god entered there.
“Ah, yes. You’ve come to make excuses. Go ahead.”
The moment the outer god entered and eyes gathered, a silence like a void descended for a very brief instant as attention focused.
The first person to open their mouth was none other than the outer god.
“What excuses, you evil being! How dare something like you open your mouth to the Holy Spirit!”
Then immediately the paladin who spoke first drew his sword from his chest and shouted. Right after, he cited the Holy Spirit Religion’s scripture and denounced the outer god.
To those who had the Holy Spirit Religion as their mother religion, the words said to be written in the Holy Spirit’s scriptures had powerful persuasiveness in themselves.
This means that most people present began to think of the small girl before their eyes as an evil god without doubt, as pure evil.
She actually was pure evil.
When warmth is taken, people break. They no longer become human but turn into monsters.
Monsters that kill the life before them in search of warmth.
How is this different from killing people?
Moreover, it’s not simply taking warmth by hunting like an animal.
By planting itself in others, it can take warmth from others.
Even that alone would be a disgusting monster, but this monster gets its hands on the descendants of those it planted itself in.
It gives part of itself and takes everything they had when they die.
The outer god misunderstood that its contract was continuing through blood, but in reality, it was because of the contract it made.
It’s a cruel contract that, depending on interpretation, could potentially tear apart the entire Kingdom of Anselus.
But the outer god didn’t know that far yet.
Without professional research and accumulated knowledge, it’s like not knowing in detail how food is digested in the body when people eat.
But, to begin with, the outer god had no intention of doing so.
Of course, not because the outer god was good, but because it would bring more benefits.
So for more benefits, it put on a mask of hypocrisy. It didn’t take more than necessary and purely kept the contract.
Even in the case of Yasle, the first contractor, from a certain perspective, it fulfilled his revenge. Because the royal family of the Kingdom of Anselus that Yasle wanted to eliminate actually fell once.
Not a contract made every time it blessed, but a contract to fulfill wishes.
Looking at now, who would think the Kingdom of Anselus remains? Rather, people blessed by the outer god are ruling the royal family.
Knowing this, the outer god stood even more confidently before that person and said:
“If you say so, if all contracts are worthless before god, you can boldly declare that. No one would be able to deny it before all of humanity. If you really can do it?”
It’s provocation.
Saying if you’re really right, everyone will accept it.
At those words, the paladin quickly assessed the situation. Though his speech may be rough and he may seem thoughtless, he was a paladin.
And a paladin specializing in politics called inquisition.
For such a person, wordplay didn’t work.
However, he made one misunderstanding.
That the outer god was struggling to survive.
He glanced at the priest.
In fact, the priest and paladin were dividing roles between them.
The paladin holding a sword and wearing armor acts radically, and the priest stops him and negotiates in a conciliatory manner, using the good cop bad cop technique.
A technique of intimidating with violence, then pretending to be friendly to make them think you’re on their side to extract information or make them perjure.
Since it’s a place where people live, similar techniques developed here too.
Anyway, the priest also thought from the standpoint of an ordinary person. That as evil beings usually do, it would struggle to survive.
So he judged that if that’s the case, this is an opportunity to widely spread the image of the Holy Spirit defeating an evil god.
It was a fatal judgment.
When the priest allowed it, the paladin shouted in a loud voice:
“If you say so, we’ll judge your sins before everyone! The Holy Spirit will reveal all your sins in detail and inflict the punishment befitting an evil being!”
“Now, now, calm down. If you’re in such a hurry, you can’t do anything in the Kingdom of Anselus. You should give them a chance to pay for the sins their ancestors committed.”
The priest’s words interpret as follows.
You prepare the stage. Then, we won’t punish your kingdom.
In an instant, a hero blessed by god became a sinner.
Some people in the Holy Spirit Religion thought that while Tis was a believer of the Holy Spirit Religion, he wasn’t a person of the religious order. And they didn’t like that such a person was chosen by god.
So they thought to use this opportunity to lower that divinity and elevate the Holy Spirit Religion higher.
This isn’t a bad action. But it was an unpleasant action.
At the words dismissing the pride of the Kingdom of Anselus and the great man who created the current kingdom, a slight resentment rose in the people of the Kingdom of Anselus.
The outer god, who could read people’s expressions, roared with laughter inwardly seeing this scene.
Strictly speaking, the memory that the outer god calls the faded man laughed rolling on the ground.
Because what the priest just said was like saying to Koreans, “King Sejong the Great? What great, he’s just a king.”
But the authority of the Holy Spirit Religion was too strong to openly refute this. So conversely, it sank deep into their hearts while waiting for the moment when indignation would burst.
Meanwhile, the king approached the outer god with a stiff expression.
“It has been decided so.”
And he ordered soldiers to prepare an execution platform in the square. Hearing this, the paladin and priest nodded happily, and the people of the Kingdom of Anselus watched, feeling bad but saying they’re killing an evil god.
“Yes. People have the freedom to choose their god freely. I don’t get angry about such things.”
The poisoned blade moves.
“I get angry at those who take freedom from humanity.”
At this moment, god became the one oppressing human freedom.
But no one thinks deeply about the meaning of those words.
Because it wasn’t such a shocking sound. This could simply be heard as saying though you’re about to be punished by the Holy Spirit, you don’t dislike it so please spare me.
And Hyunkeshuni, watching from afar, giggled when she heard that terrifying outer god begging.
Almost 80 years ago.
The monster that stayed silent like a doll for half a year thinking about eating people is now scared again.
You just said you were going to die, but now you’re scared and acting cute to people?
Hyunkeshuni projected herself and thought like that.
Since people always think centered on what they’ve experienced, it was inevitable.
For someone who always fled in fear of death, such appearances are easy to notice.
A monster more terrible than herself, trembling before god and begging for life. And it’s the monster that tormented her.
With a gloomy satisfaction, Hyunkeshuni decided to watch this show to the end.
What kind of appearance will that outer god show at the moment of death?
And there was a perspective unique to people of this world deeply embedded in it. It was so deeply embedded that there was one fact that even Hyunkeshuni thought was natural.
If punished by god, the outer god dies.
Yes.
This.
That’s how great a being god was.
During the brief time spent with the outer god, the appearance of the outer god observed was, unlike its self-proclaimed image, an immature kid, and above all, the outer god said itself that it was human.
Humans who cannot dare to reach god.
So she let her guard down.
While Hyunkeshuni was smiling and waiting, imagining the miserable death of the outer god, a huge execution platform began to be built in the square in front of the royal castle.
In the meantime, people with purple hair came to meet the outer god.
They came and asked:
“If you go like this now, what happens to my blessing?”
It was an extremely selfish reason.
The youth and health they had just gained.
They were worried that these might disappear in an instant.
But the outer god didn’t reproach them.
Rather, it answered like this:
“Even if I disappear, the blessing won’t disappear. It’s not collateral. I just gave it because I wanted to give it. Originally, blessings are bad.”
At the outer god’s words, the people with purple hair felt their hearts drop, and the people secretly eavesdropping mocked those who received the blessing.
Those who received the blessing also asked back in surprise:
“What do you mean bad?”
But the outer god didn’t give the answer that probably many people wished for. Instead, it wove words thoroughly to tear down the gods.
“Like children leaving their parents’ embrace, blessings are too excessive a gift for humanity who will someday leave god’s embrace and stand on their own. But I wanted to give it.”
It didn’t deny gods.
It said that someday they could reach an excellent position like gods.
It sounded like words without any bad intentions mixed in, not hating anyone.
The outer god had no intention of replacing the Holy Spirit.
Instead, it decided to plant one idea. It was also the foundation of the Enlightenment where humanity leaves the shadow of gods.
No one fully understood those words yet.
Not yet.
But it left something in the people who heard it.
The outer god, while sowing seeds, hoping they would someday germinate, advanced towards the place where it would die.