Chapter 376
(Kyle Calendar Year 515: Age 22)
Northern Front ⑬ –The Shrine
Maiden's Song
Translator : PolterGlast
The young boy had once had his entire family slaughtered by
outlaws in the past. His father, mother, and fragile younger sisters…… As a
catastrophic chain-reaction of going through several relentless war campaigns,
public order and institutional safety in the Istoria Imperial Kingdom
deteriorated and collapsed all at once, and the village he lived in was
ruthlessly attacked by a swarm of bandits. Simultaneously with the frantic,
terror-filled shrieks of the villagers notifying of the emergency, the bandits violently
broke into the village.
The single reason he barely survived and escaped the blade
was because his mother sharply told him to quickly climb up the high timber
beam of the house. By the time the outlaws broke into the house, only he, who
was agile and lightweight, had escaped to conceal his form deep in the
pitch-black attic, but the others were left behind pinned to the floor below.
And staring down from the razor-thin crack in the wooden beams, he could only
watch trembling in pure, unadulterated horror as his father, mother, and
younger sisters were mercilessly killed.
So that the bandits wouldn't notice the boy's location, his mother relentlessly kept her fading eyes fixed on the
ceiling, worrying about the boy with a final protective blessing until the
exact moment her life-force ended. The boy still hasn't forgotten his mother's
agonizing face at that time; it was
indelibly carved into his psyche. Not only his family, but all the living
people residing in the village were systematically killed
by the bandits. Just so they could secure a meager amount of coarse food to
feed their bellies…… In the desolate, ruined frontier regions of the Istoria
Imperial Kingdom, such horrific nightmare sights were routinely repeated as
if it were a matter of daily course.
『 Next
time I will definitely protect them!
』
Trembling in absolute, burning self-reproach for having
stood by completely powerless in the past, the boy had secretly sworn an
unyielding vow so before his newly formed temporary, makeshift family. That was
precisely the absolute reason why the boy secretly kept the sharp dagger he
obtained inside the streets of Asura tightly secured close to him at all
times, even boldly going against the holy dogmas and teachings. And now, right
before the boy's eyes, his gentle, protective mother of his new world was violently
struck and fell heavily into the dirt. Furthermore, a colossal titan of a large
man aggressively leaned over as if to deliver a definitive finishing blow to
his mother.
『 No!
Stop! It's happening exactly like that time!
』
Blinded by a towering wave of frantic panic, he jumped out
desperately, unsheathing the concealed dagger he had in his pocket, and driven
by the sheer weight of his momentum, he charged and thrust it wildly.
※
「 BOSSーーー!!! 」
Along with Lars's frantic shriek, the surrounding
atmosphere of the bottleneck froze into stone for a single, terrifying instant.
「 You miserable bastards! I'll
annihilate every last one of you! 」 「 Hurry and call a Holy Mage this exact second! 」 「 Signal the main central unit! Command all divisions to
launch a full-scale frontal attack……! 」
Except for Lars himself, who remained entirely pinned
to his commander's side, the people under Gail's command who were around
him glared down at the surging civilian columns with eyes full of unyielding,
murderous anger. And it was at that exact, cataclysmic fraction of a second.
「 STOPーーー!!! 」
Aura's
piercing, blood-curdling voice, which was already close to a desperate shriek,
violently resonated across the battlefield. Trapped at her elevated ridge at
this time, Aura couldn't visually see the exact coordinate or figures of
Gail and the others across the dense melee. However, it was a voice
shouted frantically and desperately because she instinctively wanted to
forcefully halt the situation before it dissolved into a secondary,
catastrophic melee slaughter again.
Simultaneously, just as several magnificent streaks of
dazzling golden light sliced and ran across the heavens in the area, a gentle,
cascading light as if surging and welling up from the very earth
blanket-wrapped the entire ten-thousand-strong unit
of people in a warm, ethereal shroud. Utterly paralyzed by the divine
spectacle, they merely stared at that radiant light blankly and stood petrified
in their tracks.
Following that, a deeply familiar, sacred "Song Dedicated
to God" echoed in their ears with a staggeringly beautiful, divinely high
and clear, crystalline singing voice. That song was the exact vocal melody that
the Divine Messengers, the Holy Mages revered as Shrine Maidens, who the former
Pope always had accompany him when he toured various places in the Istoria
Imperial Kingdom to flamboyantly show the "Majesty of God",
dedicated before God in front of the masses. To the common populations living
in the Istoria Imperial Kingdom, even without knowing the names or faces
of the Divine Messengers, the sacred songs they dedicated were deeply,
flawlessly etched into the absolute bedrock of their memories and souls.
「 Ahhh…… Heavens…… 」 「 I……
have heard this melody, this voice…… before. 」 「 There is no mistake!
This is…… the divine presence of the Divine Messenger-sama! 」
The pristine singing voice echoing across the battlefield
played a remarkably gentle and profoundly sorrowful melody, effortlessly
captivating the hearts of everyone who caught the sound. With those shedding
tears pouring down their cheeks due to Sior's singing voice, and those
collapsing and falling to their knees offering frantic, weeping prayers to God,
the suffocating, brutal atmosphere up to now had been completely,
instantaneously swept away and vaporized from the air. It was a manifestation
of pure sacred energy so absolute that even Lars, a man who harbored
zero religious devotion or worship toward Goddess Ishtar, couldn't help
but be physically incapable of denying the somewhat divine, hallowed atmosphere
wrapping his bones.
And then, his intellect suddenly returned to his senses,
forcefully fracturing through the spell.
「 Call
a Holy Mage right now! Now, with the
utmost urgency! 」
「 It's already…… far too late for
that, Lars…… and besides…… Lady Sior has been entrusted with a
monumentally more important strategic role upon this front. Lars…… you
too, possess the tactical clarity to see the wider board and surroundings,
right…… 」
Hearing the faint, rasping murmur originating from the earth
below, Lars inadvertently dropped to his knees and embraced his superior
officer's upper torso against his chest.
「 Forgive my weakness…… could you……
help me lift my upper body up…… a fraction…… please? 」
Gail, who
successfully raised his upper body supported firmly by Lars's brawn,
offered a gentle, incredibly supportive smile at the young boy standing completely
frozen and petrified blankly before his boots. A heavy steel dagger was pierced
deep into his chest vitals, and the relentless, draining torrent of flowing
blood was rapidly saturating and dyeing his clothes in a deep crimson shroud. Normally, with the physical strength of a mere fragile common boy,
there's absolutely no way he could pierce through a specialized piece of heavy
armor forged using the hardened hides and skin of a high-tier monster. But
through a catastrophic alignment of pure battlefield friction and coincidence,
because he received the dense momentum and pressure of the swarming crowd
pressing from the rear heavily onto the hilt, the dagger pierced deep and
inflicted an absolute, fatal wound on the Foreman-Baron Gail.
「 Listen to me, young man…… do not
torture your soul with worry. Your mother is…… exactly as you can see her……
completely safe and unharmed…… 」
Peeking out from behind Gail's collapsed frame who
said so, the civilian woman he had risked his life to act as a guardian shield
and protect with his very body was crouching across the dirt.
「 MOTHERーーー!!! 」
Noticing the boy's frantic shriek, the mother stood up to
her boots while staggering slightly. Her garments were somewhat soiled with
dirt, but she seemed to have zero other external structural injuries, and upon
getting up, she immediately hugged the boy tightly.
「 I'm so sorry…… 」
Slicing through the fog of her daze at this time for the
very first time, the boy's mother understood that she had been protected by
this colossal man acting as her shield, and that her own son had ruthlessly
stabbed her lifesaver with a blade in return, and she dissolved into
violent weeping and began to tremble.
「 Listen to me, young man……
regardless of how minor a tool it appears, even a…… steel dagger like this……
you see. The absolute second it punctures a man's flesh, if you get stabbed……
it hurts and inflicts a burning pain quite a bit…… It possesses the raw power
to permanently delete a human life from this world…… P-People can even die……
you know. From this day forward, next time…… daring to do hazardous, dangerous
things is…… no good, so…… alright? 」
「 I…… I am…… so sorry…… 」
「 Remember this baseline truth,
listen, okay? A true warrior must first…… firmly forge and hold his sword……
straight inside his own h-heart. To ensure he possesses the absolute discipline
required to protect…… what is most precious to you…… see. 」
「 Yes…… I promise…… I'm sorry. 」
「 Lars…… I am leaving the boy's future to your guidance, take care
of the kid…… Ensure his footsteps…… do not lose their alignment and way along
the path ahead from here on…… 」
「 Boss! You have my ironclad word, of
course I will see it done! But save your breath—why
the hell is a Holy Mage, isn't here yet! 」
Simultaneously with delivering his absolute guarantee and
answering Gail, Lars snapped his head back and shouted back with
a furious roar to his own allied lines. Within
the ranks of the Third Division, there are specialized expert Holy Mages
serving in the military besides Sior; in truth, Sior and Aura were merely
intentionally deployed and dispatched to this forward coordinate for this
highly specific strategic operation. Gail graced his old
brothers-in-arms with a final, serene smile at them, and gently closed his eyes
just like that.
He lifted his arm, intending to offer a final, reassuring
pat to stroke the head of the weeping boy kneeling before his boots and
apologizing while shedding tears—but mid-stride, the raw kinetic energy
completely drained from his vessel, his hand lost its strength and dropped
heavily into the dirt.
「 GENERALーーー!!! 」 「
COMMANDERーーー!!!
」
「 BOSSーーー!!! 」
Around Gail, as the specialized Holy Mages who
finally breached the lines and rushed over appeared, and amidst the
intersecting frantic, heart-broken screams of the shrieking devoted soldiers,
as if lamenting Gail and mourning the departure of a legendary hero, the
pristine song with a profoundly sorrowful yet divine, hallowed melody continued
to echo and float gracefully across the crimson dawn battlefield.
※
Even when the frontline commoners pushing the shields at the
front, and those following them were completely paralyzed and dumbfounded, a
separate faction of hidden provocateurs who harbored different thoughts
attempted to forcefully recapture the momentum.
「 We successfully shot and deleted
the enemy's Supreme Commander from the field! The divine wrath and God's wrath
has bestowed absolute victory and given us power! Apostles of God, push forward
and follow! Launch your charge now! Now is the absolute moment to effortlessly
crush the encirclement and trample the defense grid of those atrocious guys
into powder! 」
Originally, the common outcasts who were supposed to be
emboldened by those unhinged words and rush forward in fanatical agreement,
hesitated and their boots remained firmly pinned to the earth. The reason
behind their sudden hesitation was absolute: because they had already been
thoroughly bathed in the specialized resonance of Light Magic and the
brainwashing hypnotic programming state was undone and shattered, they were no
longer mindless puppets and no longer blindly believed the "words of
God" their handlers spoke.
「 My compatriots of the Istoria
Imperial Kingdom and my fallen countrymen of the Istoria Orthodox
Theocracy, I implore you to open your ears and please listen once again. In
the past, we too once completely believed the 'Fabricated Words of a False God'
and turned our blades to slaughter innocent, defenseless neighbors who had done
us no wrong. 」
Aura stepped
forward and began to speak to the people again, and this time the common
outcasts also actively began to accept and allow those words to penetrate their
hearts. Beholding the sudden collapse of their control matrix, the corrupt
agents who thought bitterly of that state raised their venomous voices and
screamed frantically across the ranks respectively.
「 Do not permit yourselves to be deceived
by her lies and believe them! That witch is a fraud and a fake, that is the
devil's demonic spell and melody conjured to mislead and fracture everyone's
souls! 」
The sight of them trying desperately to frantically patch
the rifts and gloss over it only looked like they were unnecessarily denying
their own correctness and exposing the ugliness of their narrative to the
crowd. Much less, the very defending soldiers they called 'devils' had uniquely
risked their own physical safety and lives to act as an absolute shield to
protect a fellow civilian woman, and despite receiving a lethal, bleeding evil
blade from a human hand in return, had refused to unleash a single act of
counterattack or slaughter against them……
「 There are probably those among you
who choose to label my presence a counterfeit and call me a fake. 」 Sior's voice cut through the silence, her vocals dropping the
song to address the host directly. 「 But the sacred melody of the Holy Shrine-Maiden of God, Sior,
is an entity that thousands of your households and many people must have marked
with your own ears and heard in the past. Standing before the absolute purity
of this vocal signature, even after hearing this singing voice, do you truly
possess the audacity to call us false, fraudulent Divine Messengers? 」
Even among the elite Divine Messengers, throughout her
historical tenure within the borders of the Imperial Kingdom, Sior was
uniquely blessed with an outstanding, peerless, legendary vocal talent for
singing that vastly outclassed her peers. Precisely because she commanded that
godlike acoustic signature, she once uniquely received the former Pope's favor
and coddling, accepted the role of a premier Shrine-Maiden, toured the entire
Imperial Kingdom provinces, and sang for the singular purpose to solely elevate
and bloat the authority of the Central Church.
However, Sior herself had grown to utterly loathe and
detest this sacred melody and song. To the extent that she had forged an
ironclad vow to never permit her lips to channel the notes and never sing it
again…… Because the song was a monumental trigger that violently reminds her
that she was once a sad and painful bird trapped within a caged golden
nightmare, her personal dignity ruthlessly stripped away as a private plaything
for the corrupt Popes. But against the desperate compatriots who would
completely close their hearts and not listen to Aura's logical appeals,
she chose to violently shatter her own sacred oath and suddenly began to sing
for the sake of their survival. Glancing sideways at Aura and her
companions beside her, who were profoundly shocked precisely because they knew
the dark circumstances……
「 Do
you crave to understand why the maidens once revered and called Divine
Messengers of the Heavens chose to permanently sever their ties and
turn their back on their ancestral
motherland? The truth is absolute: that is because we
learned and discovered that the high clergy and church was systematically
infusing our souls with fabricated lies and blowing falsehoods into people for
their own base, selfish desires. Everyone must have also learned of the
catastrophic sins and mistakes of the Istoria Imperial Kingdom and
abandoned your homes to seek a true sanctuary and salvation from the Orthodox
Theocracy. On that fundamental premise, your
feelings and ours are
completely the same and unified. 」
Matching Sior's singing voice, Aura's resonant
words continued to blend flawlessly.
「 But tell me! 」 Aura's tone sharpened into iron. 「 Does launching a violent invasion into other foreign
countries, ruthlessly reaping the agricultural fields of innocent citizens, and
plundering their private wealth amount to a righteous, holy doctrine and
correct deed?! Such lawless atrocities and deeds are remarkably, flawlessly
identical to the sickening actions the corrupt former Popes of our past desired
and executed! I implore you, please return to the true, righteous correct
path…… to the beautiful, benevolent teachings of our Goddess Ishtar
overflowing with self-love! 」
「 Do
not listen! Do not dare lend an ear or lock your ears onto the words of these
devils! They are exactly the very monsters who systematically massacred our
compatriots and stole our homeland! 」
「 We present an absolute guarantee:
please, stop the violent march and stay here as you are, remaining stationary
at this place. The monumental burden of the sins everyone has been
manipulated into committing up to now across this campaign, we, the maidens who
were once called your Holy Divine Messengers and bore sins, will also gladly
stand by your side to help you atone for them together. And furthermore, I
promise everyone. For any soul among you who wishes and craves it, our
administration shall flawlessly make the logistical arrangements so that you can
definitely be escorted to return to your motherland at a later date without
fail! 」
「 Ahhh…… Heavens, God, forgive us…… 」 「 Holy Divine Messenger Aura-sama, Holy Shrine-Maiden Sior-sama!!!
」
Confronted by her profound, sweeping grace, a massive, cascading
wave of common outcasts collapsed to their knees across the highway on the spot
and dissolved into frantic, weeping prayers. However, beholding the absolute
collapse of their tactical meat-shield, those corrupt agents who did not think
well of this brandished their concealed steel, raised their swords and began to
violently shriek across the sectors in various places.
「 Advance! Keep pushing forward! Why
won't you advance, you worthless cowards! They are playing you for fools and
deceiving you. Puncture through their lines, to claim the heads of these
demonic lackeys to offer as a sacred sacrifice to God, you must not permit a
single one of them to escape this field alive! 」
Screaming their unhinged directives, the corrupt agents
began to aggressively deploy physical military force, using their blades to
forcefully drive the common outcasts forward. Standing at the absolute center
of the altar-wagon, the man claiming to be a Bishop joined the chorus, and also
began to unleash a torrent of foul, venomous verbal abuse against Aura
and her companions with a foul mouth.
「 Well, well, well. Brandishing iron
blades and pointing a sword against our Holy Divine Messenger-sama, and
moreover loudly demanding us to take her decapitation and head, that is a remarkably
hazardous, un-parish-like disposition to showcase and not gentle, you bastards.
My fellow countrymen, everyone caught his words and heard that clear as day,
right? As for me—I will place my absolute faith and believe the Holy Divine
Messenger-sama's words! 」
「 Me too! 」 「 Protect our Holy Divine Messenger-sama! 」 「 Those corrupt church bastards were the true liars deceiving
us all along! 」
Seizing the absolute, perfect tactical threshold seeing the
right moment, when Reim bellowed his challenge and shouted loudly across
the field, his hidden intelligence comrades instantly responded to it and began
shouting in a synchronized chorus of roaring support. The wave of rebellion
rippled through the outcasts with cataclysmic velocity, that circle expanded greatly,
and swelled into a monumental domestic uprising that became something
physically impossible for the corrupt Bishop and the others to contain or
suppress.
And then, the final drop of friction bled out……
「 Guh! No—! 」
Trapped in absolute, blind panic terrified by the
surrounding swarming voices closing around his position, one of the armed
guards lost his nerve and violently swung his blade, slashing at a defenseless
civilian.
「 In a holy procession and march to
merely praise God completely unarmed without holding weapons and without
relying on physical military force, by what right do you brandish and raise
iron weapons?! Why do you violently shatter the very parameters and refuse
peaceful discussions through words as you yourselves were claiming to champion?!
And above all else, why do you dare shed the blood and hurt your own
compatriots?! 」
Bellowing their righteous fury and raising voices of anger
across the field, Reim and his hundred elite operatives launched a
brutally synchronized assault, violently attacking the armed provocateurs
holding weapons. Every single operative within his cell are constantly highly
trained, battle-hardened veteran legionnaires; against a collection of
makeshift, low-tier thugs and soldiers, they are fully capable of effortlessly
executing total physical subdual even while operating completely bare-handed.
And beholding the magnificent, decisive display of the infiltration cell, even
the common outcasts who were drawn by that movement threw their own bodies into
the melee, swarming and attacking the armed agents holding weapons across all
sectors in various places.
「 Submit to and obey our Holy Divine
Messenger-sama's words! 」 「 Align your souls under the true, correct teachings! 」 「 We refuse to function as disposable tools for a corrupt
clergy and the church! 」
The specialized guards carrying iron weapons in this holy
procession—outcasts originally gathered and scrounged from the lowest-tier ruffians,
mercenaries, thugs, and bandits across the borderlands—amounted to a
microscopic minority, representing less than a few tenths of a percent of the
total ten-thousand-strong men overall.
Furthermore, because Reim and his elite operatives surgically,
flawlessly, and efficiently began subduing them, completely fracturing their
apparatus of control into cinders, when the massive horse-drawn altar-wagon the
man claiming to be a Bishop rode on first began to execute a frantic, desperate
flight toward the rear, seeing his escape, they all
began to flee at once as if drawn by it, scattering like rats into the
wilderness.
On this monumental day, the fanatical 'vanguard of God' that
the invading coalition army unleashed to serve as a pioneer meat-shield of the
resumed offensive collapsed into absolute disintegration—with the vast,
overwhelming majority of the ten thousand souls cleanly and peacefully
surrendering to come under the official protection of the Demon Territory
Dukedom army.
Yet, the strategic ledger of the high command had been
forced to balance that monumental triumph by surrendering a piece of the
absolute bedrock of their realm—paying the irreplaceable life-force and
existence of a legendary foreman, Takuhir's deeply trusted, most
cherished friend who had continuously sustained his path and supported him for
a decade, as their ultimate sacrifice……
◇◇◇
In the historical eras following the ultimate containment
and total suppression of the multi-nation civil war and turmoil that ravaged
the land, occurring during Kyle Year 515 involving several countries, a
fascinating architectural phenomenon manifested across the newly established
grand temples in various places dedicated to worshipping the Goddess Ishtar.
Kneeling proudly at the absolute right hand beside Goddess Ishtar, a
magnificent stone effigy and statue of a certain, singular monumental man is
said to have been integrated and added into the hallowed sanctuaries.
Represented across the marble canvases holding the legendary
Shield of Gaia, which is the absolute proof indicating an unyielding,
indomitable guardian soul protecting the common people, the man who was
protecting the Goddess and kneeling
beside her was once an Divine Messenger of the Wind, but was officially,
names-and-realities aligned, elevated into the highest echelons of the
pantheon, his presence ranked and listed forever beside her as one of the true
Gods in both name and reality.
And furthermore, because everyone, all the faithful who
arrived at his altars and worshipped him, routinely brought forth great jugs of
fine alcohol and liquor to offer as their sacred offerings, the passage of
centuries gradually reshaped his lineage across the folklore, and it is said
that before anyone knew it, ensuring that the generations of the future would
forever revere his name, he also came to be called under the immortal moniker
of the God of Alcohol and Wine, Gail.
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