“Haah… haah… This is fucking awful to set up.”
Maybe it was because I’d stayed up all night reading the Bible and the game catalog, but my body felt exhausted. I didn’t have the energy to keep working by myself right away.
I sat for a moment on a folding chair I’d left in one corner of the farm, set the Large-Print Revised Korean Holy Bible (I’d bought it for my father after his eyesight got worse) beside the Immortal Order catalog, and opened it.
Then I examined, one by one, the scenes where angels descended or manifested.
The result was… exactly as I’d seen yesterday.
Angels protect people and wage spiritual war against demons. As instruments of God, they serve mankind and the Church, and when the Last Judgment comes someday, they exterminate the evil of this world.
They comfort the fugitive Hagar, announce Jesus’ conception to the Virgin Mary, fly through the heavens, defeat demons, burn 185,000 Assyrian soldiers, and appear as visions before various prophets to show them the future.
Among these, what could I do?
Appear suddenly before a saint? I don’t know who the saints of this era are, but I doubt there’s one within a thousand kilometers of here.
Fly through the sky? Obviously impossible. For reference, there are still more than two hundred years left before the Wright brothers are born.
Teleport around defeating demons? That won’t work either. I can’t even guess how long it’ll be until teleportation is developed. Is it even possible to develop?
Burn 185,000 people? If I could do that, I wouldn’t be human anymore…
…Now that I think about it, being capable of instant bodily regeneration probably means I’m not human either, so I take back that last remark.
Anyway.
Among the angels’ countless powers, there is only one I can imitate.
Prophecy.
…Strictly speaking, theologically, angels can’t prophesy, it was all shown by God, and so on, but that isn’t important.
In any case, in incidents where angels appear before prophets like Daniel and Zechariah, or before John, and show them visions of the future or interpret those visions for them, angels are present. The Angel of Fatima, who appeared in the twentieth century, also showed the witnesses the future.
That’s what matters.
Angels are heralds of prophecy.
And I… can make that “prophecy.” With what?
—Immortal Order: Origin—Game Supplement and Background Lore
With this.
And if I add my shallow knowledge of world history, I can foresee the future decades, no, centuries ahead.
With this, I will realize an angel’s “power.”
But… this alone isn’t enough.
Because on the surface, I look like an ordinary human.
I can’t emit light from my body, I don’t have wings, and I’m not a wheel covered in dozens of eyes like the nonhuman life-forms that sometimes appear in the Bible.
In other words, even if I have an angel’s “power,” I lack its “majesty.”
…I look around.
This is the inside of a greenhouse full of Shine Muscat grapes just before harvest. Grapes are a crop with great symbolic meaning even in the Bible, as when Jesus Christ said, “I am the true vine, and my Father is the husbandman” (John 15:1).
Most of all, this place is indoors.
Inside the greenhouse where I’ve half-finished the work, I try whispering softly.
“Walter… Raleigh…”
Then, from the speakers laid out on all sides, a voice amplified several times over begins to sound.
—“Walteer… Raleiigh…”
The voice spreading through the room creates a solemn atmosphere with its insane volume, the overwhelming sensation of coming from every direction, and the unique resonance produced by an enclosed space.
Yes… So this is how the karaoke machine and speakers I was forced to buy during the village event shine.
In any case, I’ve hidden the speakers thoroughly, so I’ve cut off any worry at the source that Raleigh might somehow find them.
Here, I will reveal an angel’s “majesty.”
Of course, whether the other party will be frightened just because I make my voice echo through speakers remains to be seen. The speakers are only seasoning, after all; the key lies ultimately in the “power” of prophecy.
To a man of the sixteenth century shaken by voices coming from all directions, I will whisper the future. At the very least, it shouldn’t be too hard to look like something on the level of a prophet.
If the plan works… Walter Raleigh will kneel before power and majesty, and I will descend before him.
As an angel of the New World.
I set down the Bible.
***
“We’ll arrive soon! Croatoan is in sight!”
At that cry, Walter Raleigh lifted the Bible he had left in the bow. Again and again he made the sign of the cross, and again and again he held back the laughter threatening to burst out.
Wealth and glory.
All his life, he had lived chasing wealth and glory.
Born into a fallen gentry family, and as the youngest son at that, his was a life of contempt. From the dirt, with only the charm and decisiveness of his own body, he had entered the heart of English politics.
And yet…
He was still nothing more than the queen’s clown.
Francis Drake commanded a vast fleet, accomplished all manner of military exploits, and carved his name into history.
William Cecil, as the queen’s secretary of state, infused his will into the whole of government. Some even whispered that Her Majesty the Queen was nothing more than his puppet.
Francis Walsingham, as the queen’s spymaster, snatched up whispers from all across Europe and murmured them into the queen’s ear. With one gesture of his hand, the sordid secret of some court would be uncovered; with one glance from him, someone would be poisoned in the dark.
But he alone… he alone… had lived no differently from the queen’s instrument of self-pleasure! And even so, everyone envied and resented him, saying he enjoyed power beyond his station!
That disgusting Earl of Essex… that wretched Walsingham… He muttered as he chewed over, one by one, the faces of the countless noble lords who had scorned him, looked down on him, and deemed him vulgar. Wealth and honor, wealth and honor…
How much painstaking effort had he endured before the name Walter Raleigh came to be preceded by “Sir”?
The time had come… for that effort to be completed.
“Sir Raleigh? Doesn’t something seem strange?”
“…What seems strange, Thomas?”
“No, when I explored it last time, Croatoan was merely a small sand island! There’s no possibility that the court of some Indian emperor could be established there…!”
“What a ridiculous thing to say. He is an emperor! An emperor who can move thousands of subjects with a single gesture! With a word from him, raising a palace like a mirage would be nothing!”
“That may be so, but why Croatoan of all places? Why appear on some remote, barren sand island?
Besides, isn’t Croatoan Manteo’s homeland? Manteo never once said there was a great emperor near his home—”
“Shhhhh!”
Walter Raleigh covered Thomas Harriot’s mouth and said,
“My… friend. Think carefully. Why would you, who are normally so clever, suddenly spout such words? When the time is coming for us to meet an Indian emperor who lives surrounded by countless quantities of gold and jewels?”
“M-Mr. White’s story does not logically hold—”
“Her Majesty the Queen!”
He shouted in excitement.
“Does Her Majesty the Queen not go out to inspect her territories? When Her Majesty is on inspection, does she always remain only in crowded London and its bustling streets? She does not!”
“…”
“A-And besides, think about it! He is an emperor, but he is also a lamb of the Lord! A lamb! A frail human who has just encountered the Gospel and trembles before the existence of the great Lord, begging for submission!”
Yes… Even those accursed noble lords were ultimately nothing more than souls in clay, equal before the Lord.
All are no different before the Lord. Just as an instant loses all value before eternity, just as the might of all finite things is broken before infinity.
Raleigh—Sir Raleigh—pictured the great emperor in his mind.
“He… must be thirsting for the Gospel. And then he encountered us, the people of the Gospel! Have you imagined that excitement? He has come to greet us! Waiting for us on Croatoan Island at the eastern end!”
“…”
“W-We only have to present this Bible to him. And then we say…”
Your long waiting is over.
Now eternal bliss awaits you.
“Think of it. The glory that Cortés, that insignificant Spanish yokel, gained by luckily conquering an empire of cannibals!
And what of Pizarro? He kidnapped the emperor of the Inca, took him hostage, and obtained all the gold in the world!
…But are we not far more civilized than those Catholic savages? We shall not threaten a great monarch bestowed by God with swords and guns.
We shall anoint his brow with holy oil and proclaim to the entire world that he is a legitimate king recognized by God!
And all his subjects will convert after him! Following their powerful, wealthy, glorious emperor! Tens of thousands, no, hundreds of thousands, perhaps millions!
Our glory will remain forever. We will go to heaven, and Her Majesty the Queen will feel pride that she entrusted the governance of Virginia not to anyone else, but to me, to me!”
When that time came…
He would no longer be a toy upon the Virgin Queen’s bed.
He would escape that pun of a station and become the great lord who evangelized the New World.
Then… history would honor him.
“We have arrived. This is Croatoan Island.”
“Splendid, Governor John White! I can see the emperor’s coastal fortress over there! It’s magnificently built! One can feel the dignity of a great monarch!”
“…”
“Is the emperor’s city at the end of that road?”
“…Yes.”
“Good! Thomas? You’re coming too!”
“I… I will wait on the ship.”
“…Are you serious? Eternal glory awaits.”
“…”
Tsk.
This was the problem with skeptical atheists. Sir Raleigh shook his head and stepped onto the sandbar of Croatoan.
Then, as he walked along the road with White, huts of a kind he had never seen before appeared.
Though crude, they were two-storied, and each had walls painted white and roofs painted green—strange huts.
Natives and Englishmen came and went there. Seeing their laughter-filled faces, Raleigh’s conviction only deepened.
Before long, a green wire fence surrounding a not particularly large manor came into view. Someone was waiting in front of the gate.
“…This is his residence.”
“An imperial palace?”
“In a manner of speaking… yes, it is.”
As the person who seemed to be their guide walked toward them, John White suddenly turned to Walter Raleigh and said,
“Sir.”
“What is it?”
“Be careful with your words before him. He is far nobler and more powerful than you imagine.”
“I know tha—”
“No. You do not.”
“…”
What was this?
The sense of wrongness he had felt in White’s attitude before now came crashing in all at once.
Why was he so devoted to an emperor of savages? Because he was the benefactor of his daughter and granddaughter? That could be.
But…
Did he not speak as though that emperor were his own liege?
As though not Her Majesty the Queen and himself, but the emperor of this land, were his true superior.
As though the emperor of this land… stood far higher than the king of England “or the like.”
“…”
“There, Mr. Hewett? This is Sir Raleigh. Please… guide him.”
“Good day, Sir Raleigh. My name is Thomas Hewett.”
At Thomas Hewett’s call, he whipped his head around and shook off the sense of wrongness from moments before.
It was needless thought. What would he do if, after harboring strange ideas, he made a slip of the tongue just as White had warned?
No one could ruin this moment.
This moment, the moment when he obtained eternal wealth and glory, had to be more perfect than anything.
“Yes. Yes. Very fine. The emperor must trust you, to have admitted you into the palace like a steward.”
“…Pardon?”
“Where is he? I can hardly bear my desire to gift him this Bible!”
“Ah, um, he is in the garden over there. First, I’ll open the gate for—”
“I will open it!”
Creeeeak!
Thus, refusing the guidance of Hewett and White, he strode forward ahead of them.
The emperor said to be fluent in English.
The emperor said to be able to move thousands with a single gesture.
The emperor who possessed countless precious gems, metals, and fruits.
And the great ruler of Virginia who would face him.
He did not care that the shape of the mansion seemed a little strange and unfamiliar. Nor did he question the transparent walls and ceiling that covered the entire garden.
Right now, in every scene before him, he saw only immortal glory and boundless wealth. Everything became proof of his conviction, and his conviction made everything appear as proof.
Within that cycle, drifting somewhere between self-assurance and obstinacy, his footsteps… gradually slowed.
At last, he arrived before the garden where the emperor was said to be.
Because he had come by boat, it had already become late at night before he knew it. Even so, he could not hide his excitement at the fact that the emperor was still waiting for him.
Raleigh pushed open the transparent door and stepped inside. Then, as respectfully as he could, and with all the confidence he could muster, he spoke.
“I behold the august countenance of Your Imperial Majesty!”
And then.
Silence.
“…”
Darkness had fallen on every side. As expected, stars were visible beyond the transparent ceiling, but the moon, of all things, had waned away. He blinked several times… waiting for his eyes to adjust to the darkness.
What he saw then was a narrow path.
And a person standing before him.
And spreading out to either side of him…
“Grapevines?”
Click!
In an instant, the inside of the greenhouse grew bright. At the sting of artificial light he had never experienced before, he unconsciously squeezed his eyes shut and covered his face with both hands.
And slowly… he lowered his hands.
A man was standing right in front of him.
…A man who looked somewhat different from what he had expected.
He was taller than Raleigh, and there were no dazzling tattoos or colorful ornaments upon him. He was neither half-naked nor overdressed, merely clothed in white.
The man looked down at Walter Raleigh for a moment, then, as if nothing were out of the ordinary, took out a pair of shears and cut a branch of grapes.
Fresh grapes fell away from the vine and into the crate at his feet. Sir Raleigh stared blankly at the sight, then opened his mouth as if whispering.
“Are… are you His Imperial Majesty?”
“…”
The man turned his head and gave a faint smile. Then, with that slow smile still on his face, he merely repeated the process of harvesting grapes like a machine.
“I heard you were fluent in English… Do you perhaps not understand what I am saying?”
The “emperor” turned his head again, showed only that same enigmatic smile, and returned to picking grapes.
“…”
“…”
In that awkward silence, Walter Raleigh had no idea what he was supposed to do.
Should he kneel and pay his respects? Or should he offer the Bible first…
“Sir Walter Raleigh.”
…Ah.
A voice, gentle yet powerful, rang through the farm. Without realizing it, Raleigh sank to one knee and held out the Bible from within his coat.
“I-I heard that Your Majesty thirsted for the teachings of the Lord… so I have brought here a Bible translated into English. Please…”
“Shhhhh…”
Thud.
The man cut off Raleigh’s words, placed a hand atop the Bible, and slowly pushed him aside.
“…”
“…”
“…”
This was unexpected. This was…
Click.
“Sir Walter Raleigh.”
And in the next instant.
…His voice “resounded.”
The emperor was clearly standing in front of Raleigh.
Yet his voice came from the left, then again from the right. It came from the front, and then from behind.
The voice of the “emperor” struck his entire body with force and swept through him.
And then.
“I already live within the light of the Lord.”
That… was the first sentence Sir Raleigh heard from the mouth of the “emperor.”
He was the son of a fallen gentry family.
Even so, for life at court, and so that he would not be scorned by the nobility, he had learned Latin and French. He could also use Spanish and Portuguese, the languages of explorers. All of them were as familiar to him as his mother tongue.
And.
In all of those languages…
The “emperor’s” voice came to him.
As though he heard it not with his ears, but with his heart.
“Why, then, do you offer me the Word imprisoned in letters?”
…Ah.
My God.
He is not fluent in English.
Whether it was John White or anyone else, they had heard him that way only because each of them possessed just one language they handled as fluently as their mother tongue.
This man…
This being…
Speaks in all the languages of mankind.
Unable to control his trembling hands and feet, Sir Raleigh asked amid infinite awe.
“Wh-who… are you?”
Then the “emperor”—no, that overwhelming existence he could not even be sure was human—said,
“I am Nemo (NEMO).”
“Nemo sum.”
“Je ne suis personne.”
“No soy nadie.”
“Não sou ninguém.”
…
…
…
I am no one.
Walter Raleigh dropped the Bible and sank down on his other knee as well.
Toward the one who was “no one.”